


The Whiteboard Correction

by justmyluckiness



Category: The Big Bang Theory (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-08
Updated: 2014-09-30
Packaged: 2018-02-16 15:13:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 40,994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2274519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justmyluckiness/pseuds/justmyluckiness
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Sheldon's Vulcan hearing detects the 'Beta Test' conversation, he decides that enough is enough. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results, right? But when Penny figures out his game, all bets are off.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Greetings! This is my first foray into Big Bang Theory fanfiction, so I hope I can do the fandom justice with this work.
> 
> Disclaimer for the entire story: While I may have borrowed some dialog from the episodes, I don't own the show, characters, settings, network, or anything related to anything profitable. All I own are the mistakes, since no betas were harmed during the making of this chapter or any other.
> 
> This story takes place just after episode 5.14: The Beta Test Initiation, so assume all spoilers up until that point, and AU thereafter.
> 
> My apologies, but anonymous commenting is disabled.

“What the frak?” Howard wondered as his brain almost melted at the complexity of equations scrawled on the boards around Sheldon and Raj’s joint office.

“Oh great. Is he stuck again?” Leonard continued, thinking back with no small amount of apprehension back to when he had to swim through a ball pit the last time Sheldon broke his brain.

Raj just looked helplessly around the small office, as his brow furrowed with the same confusion plaguing the others. The only difference was he had several days to try and puzzle out Sheldon’s work. Repeated inquiries and offers of assistance had been met with a perfunctory wave and mumbled thanks, but Sheldon never explained his latest train of thought. “I don’t know, dudes. I’ve been trying to figure this out for a week now, and it’s just as muddy as the Ganges. That is to say, very muddy.”

Letters like _S_ , _A_ , _Pr_ , _Le_ , and _Pe_ cluttered up every board in sight. It looked like years of work. At the very bottom right corner of his right most board was a short, simple equation: _(Pe-L) + (S-A) = X. Solve for X._

“S could stand for sulphur, but other than that I’ve never even heard of those elements before. Have you guys?” Leonard asked his companions, but they just shook their heads in denial.

The man in question ignored the clamor behind him. Numbers, letters, and symbols flew from his brain to the boards through his marker.

Leonard shifted from one foot to the other, looking back to the open office door. “Look, he’s here, he’s working, and he’s fine, so let’s let the man…do whatever it is that he’s doing and go get ready for the bar tonight.”

Howard turned with a gleeful grin. “I love Anything Can Happen Thursdays. Let’s go hit the town, boys.”

With a last thoughtful glance from Raj, the trio left Sheldon to his devices and closed the door behind them.

“Rats!” Sheldon stared at the whiteboard, willing the equations on the screen to coalesce into a more palatable solution, but the longer he puzzled over his work, the more convinced he was that there was only one answer that would bring about a satisfactory outcome. His mind involuntarily went back to that fateful evening when his Vulcan hearing caught the conversation outside his door. _A beta test indeed,_ he snorted to himself, _as if a second foray into drunken sexual encounters could pass for a romantic relationship any more successfully than their first failed effort._ No, a beta test could not be allowed to happen.

Checking his watch, he also realized that he would be alone this evening, as Raj, Howard, and Leonard would be frequenting one of the many watering holes near the university in their periodic attempt to achieve coitus with a random inebriated stranger. Time was of the essence if he was going to avert a potential disaster. Going back to his laptop, he pulled up a schedule. After confirming that Penny’s schedule left her free that night, Sheldon got out his cell phone and sent a quick text message.

_I need your help with a problem this evening. Will you be available to come over and talk?_

After a few moments, his phone chimed in her response.

_You need MY help? Just us or will everyone be there?_

With a small smile, he answered

_It’s their once-monthly evening of alcohol-fueled chaos, Anything Can Happen Thursday. They’ll be at a bar somewhere._

While he clicked away on his laptop to confirm a delivery order for that evening, he could almost hear the gears in her head turning before she finally replied.

_I’ll be there at 8. Dinner?_

He gave a breathy chuckle at his successful assessment of her response as he finalized his order online.

_I just ordered pizza to be delivered._

Once again her reply came through moments later.

_Count me in._

* * *

At precisely 7:59, Sheldon was opening a box of pizza on the coffee table when the door opened. With an accelerating heart beat and slightly sweaty palms, he scanned the room to make sure everything was perfect. It had to be. Everything was riding on this evening. He would be employing a simple ruse to plant the seeds of doubt in her mind about the beta test, but in this case it was worth the effort it would take to hide the deception to avert another inevitably failed romantic endeavor.

Satisfied, he turned and observed the blonde vision that breezed into the living area, not waiting for the door to be opened for her. “Good evening, Penny.”

“Always a pleasure, Sheldor,” she greeted, “Didn’t want to go out carousing with the Three Musketeers?”

He smiled slightly at her reference. “No. I find the quiet evenings much more conducive to relaxation and thought than smoky bars, crushing crowds, and music so loud I risk permanent hearing loss.”

To his surprise, rather than rolling her eyes or getting the slightly pitying expression her face often took when she was more experienced than he on a particular matter, Penny’s eyes clouded briefly before she nodded in agreement. “I never thought I would say this, but I think I’m starting to feel the same way.”

“Really? May I ask why?” he inquired as he opened the pizza box and got two plates out of the cupboard.

She shrugged as she flopped down on the couch. “You know, I’m not really sure. I was just thinking about going out clubbing with some of my girlfriends last week, but then I thought about all the work involved in getting ready and then going out, the chance of meeting some skeezy guy…it’s just getting old.”

“Penny! Do you realize that you just conducted a rudimentary risk-benefit analysis?” Sheldon asked as he turned around and brought her a plate.

“Is that what that’s called?” Penny deadpanned with a barely-concealed smirk, “I thought it was just me figuring out what was good for me after all this time.”

Seeing the glint in her eye and recognizing her sarcasm for what it was, he stopped himself from explaining the components of a risk-benefit analysis. Thinking back to a comment she had made in a similar situation, he retorted, “You’re just coitusing with me now, aren’t you?”

Penny clapped her hand over her mouth to stifle the guffaw that almost snuck out. When she was able to reply, she did so in kind, “Bazinga.”

Sheldon felt a warm feeling settle in his gut at her evident admiration of the way he detected her sarcasm and kept up the banter. After a shared chuckle, he served two slices of the pizza and sat down in his spot.

“So what was it that you needed my help with?” she asked after a couple bites. When he didn’t answer directly, Penny looked over and saw a sight she never expected: Sheldon Cooper was unsure of what to say to her. “Sheldon?”

Pausing to chew and swallow, he finally met her gaze, “It’s urgent but not critical, so we can wait until after we’re done eating,” he deflected.

Unsure of how to best respond, Penny decided to go with the flow. She asked about his work and pretended to understand while he told her about his latest theories. Finding herself surprised that she actually was following most of what he said, she realized he was giving her the non-PhD version. Even more surprising was that he wasn’t being condescending like Leonard had been the time he told her he didn’t mind dating someone who wasn’t as smart as he.

“How was your shift today, Penny?” Sheldon asked after another bite.

“Well, it was ok except for this one table. I had some trouble with some customers, but it’s no big deal. What does worry me is that my boss might be cutting hours,” she trailed off, plainly still worried about the possibility.

Out of the corner of her eye, she detected a shift in his expression. Penny turned to look at him, and before he could school his features, she saw subtle undertone that, to an actress used to portraying different emotions, signified distress.

He had to take a deep breath before calmly asking, “What sort of trouble did you have?”

He could tell the question made her uncomfortable. Pursing her lips while she decided how to respond, she finally lifted one arm in a halfhearted shrug. “Just a couple handsy frat boys. Nothing I haven’t dealt with before.”

Sheldon’s hands clenched until the knuckles turned white. “You shouldn’t be treated like that way,” he almost growled.

Penny’s eyes got huge and she blinked several times in rapid succession at how…protective...Sheldon was acting. “Sweetie, I promise it was nothing. I’m a blonde waitress in southern California. It’s going to happen eventually.”

He was far from placated. “I should have a talk with the manager. That behavior is totally unacceptable.”

“Drunks spend a lot of money and are good tippers,” she explained, wishing he would drop the subject, “Can we just let it go? It happened, it’s over, and I’m past it. Now, what did you want me to help with? And I just have to say the fact that you are asking me for help is just a little weird.”

It took him a few moments to shake the mood off, but then he visibly brightened. “Why is it weird? You’ve been of great help any number of times, like when I don’t understand pop culture references. Radiohead springs to mind,” Sheldon replied, genuinely perplexed at her confusion.

“I don’t know, it’s just that you know answers to questions I don’t even know how to ask. I always feel so dumb around you guys, so the idea that you need my help is unexpected. Remember, I’m the blonde monkey here,” Penny wrung her hands as she tried to deflect with self-deprecation.

Normally Sheldon Cooper could not care less about how his opinion of others affected their feelings to him, but after more than five years living near and getting to know Penny, she was anything but normal to him. “Penny, if I have ever said anything that made you feel inadequate or unintelligent in any way, I do apologize. You’re not as intelligent as I am, but no one is. For what it’s worth, I’ve always respected your intelligence, especially your street smarts and people sense. All that’s missing is the drive to live up to your potential. You’re far too smart to waste your life on menial jobs when with a little application you could succeed in any field you chose.”

Penny had been the recipient of many compliments from men. Any number of boyfriends were only too ready to praise her physical attractiveness – if only to get into her pants – so she never lacked for attention. Somehow though, the few words Sheldon just told her about what he thought of her brain caused a lump to form in her throat. It took several swallows before she was able to say a raspy, “Thank you, Sheldon. Hearing that from you means a lot to me.”

“I should hope it would,” he said with a half-grin, “Anyway, you remember my sister Missy, don’t you?”

The way he asked a question he already knew the answer to brought her smile back. “Yes, Sheldon. I may not have a photographic memory but I do remember your sister.”

“It’s an eidetic memory, but that’s neither here nor there,” he corrected with a dismissive wave, “Anyway, a friend of Missy’s is having some trouble and I could use your help in determining the best advice to give her.”

Penny leaned forward and set her plate on the coffee table. “Well that depends, I guess. What kind of trouble is this friend having?”

He got up and turned to his whiteboard, giving himself time to compose his thoughts so that they wouldn’t appear to be either rehearsed or dishonest. “According to what I’ve heard, this young woman is thinking about getting back together with a man who not only wasn’t good for her the first time, he’s treated her very badly on the whole.” As he finished, he turned to look at her again.

With a frown, Penny tried to get some more specifics. “Did Missy say anything in particular about what he’s done? There are a lot of different kinds of jerks out there. Trust me, I’ve dated most of them.” She watched the last comment caused his face to darken in much the same way as it did after she mentioned the frat boys, but just as before, it was gone in moments.

After a beat, he went through the list he had in his mind. “Oh where do I even begin? There was a veritable rap sheet of his offenses. Let’s see, he tried to set up a date before they were in a relationship, luring her with promises that others would be there when he had no intentions of anyone else joining them; he had meaningless sex with three different women while proclaiming devotion to Missy’s friend – for simplicity’s sake I’ll tell you her name is Peggy – flirted shamelessly with Missy in front of Peggy; he repeatedly belittled and mocked her intelligence and hobbies; he apparently started dating yet another woman while this woman was on a date with a friend of his; and finally he sabotaged a date Peggy was on with another man.”

As Sheldon ran through his predetermined speech, Penny stood and started pacing around the living room. He watched as her expression became grimmer with every step. When he finished, she was standing in front of him with her hands on her hips and anger blazing like cold fire in her eyes. She looked every bit of a Valkyrie. His knees grew weak and he experienced a sudden rush of blood to his groin at the sheer power and passion displayed in the woman in front of him.

“You tell Missy that if Peggy was my friend, it would be Junior Rodeo time on that douche bag,” she declared in a voice as cold as death itself, “No woman deserves to be treated that way. He sounds like the kind of guy who just wants to screw her and move on to the next conquest to feed his ego. If he really cared for her he wouldn’t be sleeping with any woman that spread her legs.”

Ruthlessly suppressing the urge to smile at her reaction, Sheldon instead simply said, “I will pass that along.”

Penny wasn’t done, however. “How in the world does this Peggy keep falling for that bull crap anyway?”

This was the most delicate answer yet. He had to be very careful with his phrasing. “I believe she uses alcohol to distance herself from her regrets and overlook his actions.”

Her anger morphed to concern. “Oh sweetie, you need to tell Missy that her friend needs some serious help. I mean right the hell now. If she isn’t careful she could end up an alcoholic. Do you want me to talk to Missy myself? I know this isn’t really your favorite thing to deal with,” she offered.

Although touched by her concern for his emotional stability, he demurred. “No, thank you Penny. I’ll communicate everything you’ve told me this evening. I think your unique perspective, being outside the events, will help the situation greatly.”

At a few places during his response, he paused for a beat too long, as if considering the best word to say. It was so unlike him that she narrowed her eyes, searching for any indicators that he wasn’t telling her the whole story, but his face remained twitch-free. “Ok. I hope this girl gets out of the situation before she gets hurt again,” she said before walking back over to the couch and plopping down.

Satisfied that Penny didn’t suspect anything yet, Sheldon exhaled in relief and went into the kitchen to make some tea. He was about to offer Penny some when he heard a sharp intake of breath from the couch.

“What the hell is that?” she asked.

“What is what?” Sheldon replied, trying to figure out if the note he heard in her voice was indignation or bemusement.

He watched from the kitchen as she got up and gestured to the lone equation on one of his white boards. “This. I remember some math from high school. _(Pe-L) + (S-A) = X. Solve for X_. What the hell is that?”

_Drat! The one time she actually pays attention to something on my board,_ he thought to himself. Thinking quickly, which he had to do since her eyes narrowed more and more the longer he remained silent, Sheldon forced calm into his voice. “Oh yes, that equation. It’s an algebraic formula, but it’s based in chemistry. Through other theories I’ve tested, I believe that formula will lead to the discovery of a new element.” Once more her eyes narrowed, suspicion evident on her face as she waited for any of his tics to manifest, but since he didn’t technically lie, there were no outward signs that he was deceiving her.

With a huff, Penny gave up her scrutiny and looked at her cell phone for the time. “Crap on a cracker. I was supposed to call my parents tonight. I have to get going, Sheldon. Thanks for dinner, and let me know how things turn out with Missy’s friend. If she doesn’t get things under control soon, she’s going to need a lot of help.”

“I couldn’t have said it better myself, Penny. Thank you very much for all your advice on the matter,” Sheldon said as he followed her to the door, “I hope you have a pleasant evening.”

“Sweet dreams, Moon Pie,” Penny said with a cheeky grin.

So good was his mood at how the evening had unfolded he neglected to correct her use of MeeMaw’s nickname. Once the door closed behind her, he smirked to himself and walked slowly to his desk. “Let it begin,” he muttered softly.

* * *

 


	2. Chapter 2

Something was holding Penny back from immediately starting the beta test with Leonard. Every time he tried to bring it up, she found a reason to postpone the inevitable conversation. She just wasn't up for the wounded puppy eyes or pleading voice. Unaware of what caused her hesitation exactly, she only knew that there was a thought niggling somewhere in her subconscious that made her cautious.

Whatever made her leery of another try with Leonard also made her absentminded as she went about her routine over the next few days. She took the wrong turn on the way to work and wound up going the wrong way on a one-way street. Breathing a silent prayer of thanks that she found an alley to turn around in before anything really bad happened, she had to pull into a parking lot and take several deep breaths to get her focus back.

While she started out as one of the world's worst waitresses, over the past few years she'd improved her technique to the point where she hardly ever got orders mixed up anymore. After giving Sheldon advice on what to tell Missy though, she took a cheeseburger order to someone who wanted a salad and a steak to someone who ordered soup. Flustered and out of sorts, she went to the kitchen to try to re-center herself. More than once she found herself drifting off, trying to figure out whatever had her on edge and only a concerned inquiry from Bernadette brought her back, forcing her daydreams away.

At the end of that particular day, Penny dragged herself back up the stairs to her apartment. With a forlorn gaze at the guys' apartment, she shook her head. Something about sitting there with the group was definitely not appealing at the moment, so she resigned herself to peanut butter and jelly for dinner and consoled herself with a long, steamy shower to relax her muscles. She took a long, hard look at the bottle of vodka on her counter before deciding not to dive into a liquor bottle to ignore her problems.

Much later that evening when she finally gave up on being able to give her attention to any one particular activity, Penny decided to go to bed and at least get some sleep. Sliding between her sheets, she sighed and tried to will herself to dreamland, but the same inability to settle down that had plagued her the entire week stayed with her. Much to her irritation, it didn't matter if she tried sleeping on her side, back, or stomach. Nothing helped her calm down enough to rest. When she grew too exasperated to keep tossing and turning, she reached under her bed for her special box. Her ever-reliable purple boyfriend finally released enough tension that she was able to sleep.

* * *

_Phase Two begins,_ Sheldon thought to himself while sitting at his laptop. Everyone would be arriving soon for Thai Night, and under the protection of a group conversation, he could introduce a few topics of conversation that would seem innocent on the surface, but in reality would plant certain ideas in certain heads.

Earlier in the day while in the midst of discussing a devilish problem with an equation that would have explained an obscure property of string theory, Raj asked out of the blue if he could bring his iPad to have a face chat with his sister in India. The look on his face as he asked the question told Sheldon he wasn't expecting approval, but he gave his friend a nod of approval and went back to the equation in front of him as if it was of no moment. The situation couldn't have been any more perfect if he designed it himself.

Checking his watch and calculating when his friends would arrive, Sheldon grabbed his cell phone and sent a quick text.

**Raj asked if you would join a face chat with the group tonight. If you're planning on it, I have a small favor to ask of you.**

Just a few moments later, his phone beeped to signal a received reply.

_**Oh really? And what favor would that be, Sheldon?** _

He smirked. It would be a hard sell, but he was confident she would acquiesce.

**For reasons I would rather not get into, I would appreciate it if you could ask Leonard how Alice is doing.**

Setting the phone down, he went back to the program that was running the calculations related to the equation from earlier that day.

_**I don't even want to know. What's in it for me if I do you this small favor?** _

That question made him actually chortle out loud.

**Do you remember who it was that used his own funding to keep your brother gainfully employed in the US?**

The wait for her reply was the longest yet, as if typing the letters was physically painful.

_**Touché. I'll ask the question, but now we're even.** _

While betraying no outward reaction, internally Sheldon breathed a sigh of relief.

* * *

That night, Penny gave in to routine and joined the boys for Thai. Bernadette was sitting between Howard and Sheldon on the couch while Raj and Amy took the floor, Leonard had the easy chair, and Penny was on the far side of the group in a chair she'd dragged over from her own apartment.

She looked around their little circle, taking in the mood of the whole group. She was still uneasy but unable to pinpoint the cause of her discomfort. Courtesy of the half-beer he'd consumed before Leonard returned with the food, Raj was able to enjoy conversation with everyone. Leonard was going out of his way to be solicitous to her, jumping at every movement and sound she made to fill some imagined need. Howard and Bernadette were lost in each other and contributing little to the evening, and Amy seemed to be doing anything she could to get Sheldon to smile at her.

When the conversation hit a lull, Raj spoke up. "So my sister is doing well in India. She's even managed to start dating her ex, someone who will not bring shame to my family," he finished with a dark look at Leonard.

There was a general chuckle at Leonard's exasperated expression, but no one missed the look of interest when Raj first mentioned his sister. Sheldon was careful to note Penny's hurt reaction.

"Good for her," Amy said between bites. Everyone else murmured their own congratulations.

"I was hoping we could bring her in for a video chat, if everyone was ok with that," Raj asked, hoping that the general mood meant approval.

"Oh now I think that's a great idea," Sheldon chimed in.

Dead silence around the coffee table as the entire gathering stared at him in shock.

"What? Did I spill something on my face?" he pretended to wipe his chin off.

"No sweetie, there's no food on your face. It's just that you never got along with Priya while she was here," Penny explained.

"Oh, I see. While it is true that she and I did not always see eye to eye on certain things, she was a part of this group for a time, even dating one of my best friends, and it would be inhospitable to both Raj and his sister if I were to deny him that request," Sheldon said, congratulating himself on his even tone and lack of facial tics as well as the subtle way he reminded everyone that Leonard and Priya used to be involved.

Leonard looked at him like he was trying to figure out what game Sheldon was playing from subtext, but when everyone else accepted his reasoning without probing further, he shook it off.

Before the conversation could pick up any more, Raj's iPad chimed the incoming call. His excitement was palpable as he accepted the request and set up the device on a stand so everyone could see his sister.

Sheldon smiled to himself as Priya greeted everyone. While it was true he didn't want to break up the friendship circle and routine he'd established, one of the fundamental reasons he extended his funding to Raj to keep him in country was the kinship he felt for the Indian. They were each transplants, living a great distance from where they were raised, and each felt the pull to communicate with family (Raj more so than himself, he admitted). Even more so, each had a sister with whom they fought, but also would do anything for when needed. Yes there was much he had in common with the astrophysicist.

While he had been lost in his own head, Raj had apparently decided that it would be better to turn the tablet in a circle rather than force everyone to crowd around to see his sister. She greeted each in turn, meeting Amy for the first time, asking Penny if she'd had any success with auditions and congratulating Bernadette and Howard on their upcoming wedding. Only Leonard was reserved with her, earning himself a glare from Raj for his rudeness.

When Priya saw Sheldon, she cocked her mouth into a half-smirk and said "Well hello, Sheldon. It's been so long since we've talked. I hope you're well?"

He nodded wordlessly, internally hoping no one else picked up on the emphasis she'd placed on the words. "Indeed I am, and I trust your life is proceeding in a successful direction?"

"My new law firm seems to be happy with me so far. I've heard rumors of making partner in the next five years," she replied.

"Well congratulations. I knew from the Roommate Agreement debacle that you'd make an excellent attorney," Sheldon told her with enough of a smirk that she could tell he held no ill will.

Once again the group around him gaped, this time at his apparent rapport with Priya. "What? I was raised by a Southern mother and MeeMaw to be hospitable to guests, even ones only present via technology. Plus she did get the better of my Roommate Agreement."

Wanting to avoid any further awkward questions, Priya changed the conversation and focus. "Leonard, you've been strangely quiet. Are things not going well with Alice?"

_Oh well done, Priya,_ Sheldon congratulated. She'd managed to introduce the topic in a way that was entirely organic and put the whole onus on Leonard.

"Alice? Wait, who's Alice?" Penny asked. Leonard never mentioned any Alice to her, especially recently.

"Oh, she was someone from a while ago," Leonard tried to deflect, but Priya's amused chuckle as well as the look shared between Raj and Howard kept him from shirking the issue.

"Just someone? Penny, when we broke up the last time, he called me and told me that he was tempted to sleep with this girl Alice that he'd met at the comic book store. They were making out, but he left in guilt and immediately called to tell me about it," Priya explained. She was about to go into further detail, but her phone rang. One look at the caller ID told her it was something she needed to handle. "I'm sorry everyone, but I have a situation that I need to address. It was lovely to see you all. Nice meeting you Amy. I'll call you this weekend, Rajesh," she said before abruptly signing off.

Raj and Howard burst out laughing how Penny's disgusted expression turned Leonard's to outright fear. "Yeah, I thought that one would come back to bite him in the ass," Howard teased.

"Does anyone need anything to drink? I can run to the store if we're out of anything," Leonard promised as he got up, trying to flee before any further damage could be done to his efforts to get back together with Penny.

"Sit back down, buster," Penny ordered, "You were dating Priya – a woman who you said you loved several times in my presence, but one comic book store tramp crosses your path and your pants hit the floor?"

"I, uh, well that is to say that I never…I didn't sleep with her!" Leonard protested, wringing his hands.

"So nothing happened?" Howard interjected.

Turning to him with anger coloring the lines of his face a stormy red, Leonard let his friend know exactly what he thought of this betrayal. "Not really helpful, Howard," he growled.

"Not trying to help, buddy. You're on your own with this little mess. Think of it as a little payback for a redheaded doctor," the diminutive engineer shot back. Despite being perfectly happy and engaged to the love of his life, he still hadn't forgotten Leonard's dick move in stealing Stephanie from his own date. He was only too happy to throw his drowning friend an anchor this evening.

Penny was still trying to comprehend Leonard's actions. "So did anything happen at all with this Alice?" She looked to her female friends for support and found it, as Bernadette and Amy wore matching glares directed at Leonard.

Penny watched as Leonard was again trapped by his actions. He seemed to shrink into himself, hunching his shoulders and ducking his chin. He peered out through his glasses in a way that made him look like a trapped rat, all nose and eyes as he sniffed for an escape, but found none. Flopping back into his chair, Leonard rubbed his face with his hands, and grudgingly admitted the truth. "We were making out at her place and were about to sleep together when I stopped things."

Raj took the chance to pile on, aggrieved Priya's sake. "So you only cheated a little bit on my sister?"

"Yes! No! Wait, she was already cheating on me! And that was after she decided to move back to India without telling me!" Leonard protested, feeling the circle closing in on him.

Silence settled as the group processed the information. Deciding now was the time to intercede before the situation got any further out of control, Sheldon cleared his throat. "Leonard, I wanted to ask you how your experiments with Leslie Winkle," even though saying the shrew's name would help his underlying cause here, he was unable to keep the malice completely from his voice, "are proceeding. You two have been working very closely for a while now."

Caught, Leonard took the only way out it seemed was available to him, explaining the work and hoping that no one would read anything into it, given his history of no-strings sex with Leslie. "Yeah, we're making some great progress using the new argon laser on the…coupling constant…" he trailed off, suddenly aware of what the experiment sounded like.

"Yeah, I'll bet you're working on constantly coupling with Leslie Winkle," Howard muttered into his noodles after he and Raj broke into simultaneous guffaws.

Leonard looked again at Penny, gauging how much damage his reputation in her eyes had suffered that evening. She appeared supremely uncomfortable, shifting in her chair and opening her mouth as if to speak but no words came out.

Sheldon sat back and watched Leonard's chances for a beta test with Penny go up in smoke, though they both still had to realize it. He took little joy in his part, but it had to be done. Leonard was not the kind of man that would make Penny realize her full potential in a relationship. He'd watched their first failed romantic endeavor. The longer it limped along, the sadder she got. The sadder she got, the more alcohol she consumed. The golden lady, his Queen Penelope, grew wan and washed out. Thus, the equation only had one outcome no matter how he approached the problem, no matter how he rearranged its components. Though it would ultimately destroy his friendship with Leonard if his involvement were ever generally known, there was no other alternative but to make sure the beta test didn't happen.

He kept coming back to the fact that she was Penny; there was really no other way to embellish it. Penny was herself. She couldn't be defined, measured, or explained like the elements in his equations. She was simply herself, with everything that wonderful thought encompassed. He was under no pretensions that once she gave up on Leonard, Penny would see him as a potential romantic suitor. Penny was everything he wasn't. Gorgeous and sophisticated – even if she couldn't afford the most couture items – she could realistically model for any magazine cover there was. Looking at her now, seeing how her golden tresses hung down around her face, he felt the attraction stronger than ever.

At times angel and devil, good and evil, light side and dark side, Penny was a dichotomy. Despite dropping out of community college, he knew she had a high level of natural intelligence. She was the only person he'd ever come across that was absolutely unafraid to challenge him, who always called him out on his bullshit. Normally it would be irritating, but he respected a woman who didn't back down from confrontation. Despite her sometimes acerbic tongue and truly masterful grasp and use of sarcasm, she could be utterly kind. Friendship with himself and Leonard was never an obligation for her – she just accepted them for how they were. After the initial period of getting to know each other, she went above and beyond when it came to rubbing cough medicine on his chest, singing Soft Kitty, and smoothing out the little annoyances that threw off his routine.

Beyond her latent intellectual capacity and sunny disposition, she was blessed with curves that would have a Formula-1 driver nervous. Whenever she pranced around in a spaghetti-strap camisole top like the green one she was wearing that evening – making her eyes almost glow – or the tiny shorts that illustrated how long her legs were, he suffered the curse of his eidetic memory. His mind was only too happy to replay that one glorious accident when he'd grabbed a handful of her soft, supple breast and kept up the tradition of the hero peeking. Given both touch and sight memories it was no challenge to extrapolate that over her entire body to imagine what the goddess would feel like.

_Drat!_ He cursed inwardly. The memory was having its usual effect, making his trousers uncomfortably tight. Sheldon shifted in his seat to relieve the pressure and refocused his attention on the conversation.

He'd avoided romantic entanglements his entire life for any number of reasons, not least was his aversion to germs and difficulty decoding human expressions. Rather than get involved in an interpersonal morass, he used his intelligence and career aspirations as legitimate excuses to stay out of romance. _Focus on the science, Sheldon._

Penny still hadn't said a word as the atmosphere grew increasingly awkward. Amy looked as if she wanted to condemn Leonard, but settled for her icy glare. Bernadette followed suit, adding dismissive shakes of her head. Howard and Raj found the experience of Leonard's comeuppance hugely amusing for separate reasons. Sheldon maintained his own silence on the matter. He couldn't have scripted the evening any better, but was wary of pushing it too far. Leonard looked bad enough now that he doubted Penny would be willing to undertake the silly beta test.

With a final shake of her head, Penny found her words. "I'm sorry guys, but I think I've lost my appetite. I'm just going to head back to my place. Maybe my stomach will settle down if I lie down." Without another word or look of apology, she got up and left the apartment in such haste that it seemed to the group that she was barely restraining herself from running.

Bernadette and Amy communicated wordlessly before getting to their own feet. "We'll go make sure she's ok," the blonde announced after kissing Howard on the cheek. Amy nodded and directed what she clearly thought was a seductive smile at Sheldon before the two left without another word.

In their absence, the four scientists looked at each other, unsure what to say. Raj and Howard were amused at the whole situation, Leonard still looked like a trapped rat, but one that realized the water around him wasn't getting any lower anytime soon, and Sheldon studiously kept a lack of any expression.


	3. Chapter 3

Penny was sitting on the sofa with her head in her hands when Amy and Bernadette entered her apartment. "Sorry, guys. I just couldn't sit there and hear those things about Leonard anymore."

"It's okay. I had the same reaction when I learned about my Howie's past," Bernadette consoled, "For mega-geeks, those boys can be real horn dogs."

Amy gave her bestie a reassuring pat on the back. "Think of it this way: it may be impromptu, but now the two – I mean three of us – can have a girl's night!" she said in an excited tone.

Penny looked at both of her friends and saw Bernadette's encouraging smile along with Amy's undisguised eagerness for the sleepovers she was never invited to in childhood. With a sigh, she called on her acting skills and schooled her face into an expression that hopefully conveyed gratitude. "Thanks. I think some company would be really awesome right about now."

"Don't sweat it bestie," Amy said, "Us girls need to stick together in times of crisis brought on by our wayward menfolk."

With a small smile of thanks, Penny got to her feet and went into the kitchen for a can of pop. "I think the weirdest thing is that I'm not more broken up over the whole deal."

"What do you mean?" Amy interrupted before she could continue.

Realizing that her girlfriends didn't know about the beta test proposal, Penny started a bag of popcorn in the microwave before grabbing a couple more pops. Heading back into the living area, she handed one to each of the other women before sitting down. "Leonard came up with the idea for what he called a 'beta test' of a relationship where we start dating again but tell each other about things that bother us right away. His bright idea was that we could fix the 'bugs' before they become real problems."

Bernadette rolled her eyes. "He's wooing you again by treating your relationship like a computer program. How unbearably lovely," she said, sarcasm dripping heavily off her words.

"That does seem like it would be highly out of place in any romantic comedy movie Hollywood makes," Amy frowned.

Penny flopped back onto the sofa with a humorless chuckle. "It shouldn't really surprise me coming from someone who cheated on his girlfriend."

As Amy took a sniff of her armpit, she didn't notice her friends wincing. "Penny, it seems my shower at home has failed to rid me of the chemical aroma of my lab. Would it be acceptable if I took a quick shower?"

Penny blinked a couple times before nodding. "Sure, knock yourself out, Ames. Towels are in the plastic organizer under the sink."

The neurologist got to her feet with a barely-concealed gleeful grin. "I'll try to be careful as I dry off with something that was once rubbed on your golden skin. Fortunately I keep a spare change of clothes with me at all times, even including underthings."

Bernadette mirrored Penny's grimace as Amy closed the bathroom door. Their conversation moved onto the safer ground of cheesecake, acting, and lab work until the water stopped. The blaring of the blow dryer sounded throughout the apartment, but just after it started, everything went dark.

"Oh balls!" Penny exclaimed as she and Bernadette got to their feet. She pointed to an end table near the door. "Candles are in there. I'll try to find my lighter."

"What happened? Did the hair dryer blow a fuse?" the petite microbiologist asked as she spread candles on the coffee table, end tables, dining table, and kitchen counter.

"No, I use that every day," Penny answered as she found the lighter, "It must be the whole building." The two worked quickly to light every candle she owned. Their soft glow illuminated the room enough to see each other and move around, but it wasn't nearly as bright as the electric lights usually made it.

Amy emerged from the bathroom moments later in sweatpants and a hoodie. She looked comfortable, but her hair was a disaster. Still damp, it was matted and tangled beyond belief.

Penny had to cover her mouth with one hand to hide a grin. "Wow, Amy. Um, I don't really know…" she trailed off, unable to find the right words to describe the mess on her friend's head.

"It's a disaster, I know. My hair always does this if it doesn't get properly blown," Amy replied.

While Penny hid a smirk and mumbled something about how many different things that last phrase applied to, Bernadette got a ponytail holder out of her purse. "Oh, it's not so bad. Why don't you just slick it back into a ponytail?"

Amy's eyes shone with glee. "Yes! This really IS a sleepover! We're going to do each other's hair and share raunchy gossip. I wish I could go back and tell the teenaged Amy that things really will get better!"

Penny chuckled as she flopped back on the couch.

"So what are you going to do about Leonard?" Bernadette asked as she sat down next to her friend.

Blowing an errant strand of blond hair out of her eyes, Penny glared at the door. "I'm not going to date a cheater. I swore to myself I never would after Kurt."

"Even when he didn't cheat on you specifically? He has told you he loved you in the past. Maybe he really has changed," Amy reminded her.

"Once a cheater, always a cheater. I've learned that lesson the hard way," Penny declared after taking a sip of her cola, "He told me that he loves me, but he also told Priya and God only knows how many women he slept with when I wasn't interested."

"Howie told me about how the three of them each had sex with the visiting professor that stayed with Sheldon the one time, plus he's still kind of bitter about the whole Dr. Stephanie thing," Bernadette agreed

Amy looked confused. "I've heard about this Stephanie before but only from Leonard."

Bernadette started to answer but Penny waved her off. "Trust me, honey. This will be much funnier if I tell the story," she looked at Amy again, "So you know how Howard's kind of creepy and makes comments about anything with breasts (sorry Bernadette)?"

The brunette nodded.

"Well he used to be like, a billion times worse. Once upon a time, long before this crazy couple," she gestured to the tiny blonde, "bonded over a loathing of their mothers, Howard Wolowitz's go-to move was to go out to clubs and ask a girl if she wanted to drive the Mars Rover."

"You're kidding," Amy said in her customary monotone.

"No no, I shit you not. He even gave me that line early on," promised Penny as she pursed her lips and nodded, "Anyway, for whatever reason, one night that line actually worked on a tall, busty redheaded doctor - Stephanie. Long story short, Howard tried to follow through but screwed up and the Rover got stuck on Mars. He called the boys and had Leonard take her home, but before they even made her apartment, they were making out."

Amy's eyes got huge. "What!? He did that?"

Penny smirked. "Yeah. They even started a relationship, and she almost moved in until he got cold feet and broke it off."

"Wow, that's just…wow."

"Did he tell Stephanie he loved her?" Bernadette wanted to know.

Looking up to remember what happened, Penny shook her head. "No, her almost moving in freaked him out."

"I have to give Leonard credit. When I met him, I never thought he would be this successful of a Lothario. He's managed to sleep with more women than would seem credible on first blush," said Amy in what Penny had come to term her 'scientist' voice.

"Yeah, it's just, I don't know. With what he did with Stephanie, and now this new stuff about making out and almost sleeping with Alice, I'll always be wondering if he's doing them when he's with me, you know?" she asked her friends.

"I don't blame you for being a little creeped out," Bernadette said, "He doesn't exactly have the best track record. I think you can do a lot better."

Penny smiled her thanks, but her improving mood was tempered by Amy's pursed lips and furrowed eyebrows. "Amy? What's wrong?"

The brunette sat down in the chair kitty-corner from the sofa. "I really believed everything he said about being devoted to you. That I could be so wrong is upsetting."

Penny shook her head and tried to change – or at least shift – the topic. "Anyway, that's enough of that for now. What's new with you two? Bernadette, how are you doing with Howard's launch? How's Sheldon been lately, Amy?"

* * *

Across the hall the tension was still palpable.

Leonard visibly radiated anger while Howard and Raj had to stifle smiles. Sheldon worked hard to stifle all reaction to what just transpired, though inside he was elated. The evening could not possibly have gone better for his goal of keeping the beta test relationship from happening.

"That's a lot for all the wonderful help with Penny, guys," Leonard snarled.

"Like I told you, we weren't trying to be helpful," Howard retorted, "You reap what you sow, mi compadre."

Raj grinned. "In my country it's called karma. You screw around, the universe screws you back. You, my friend, just bent over and took what was coming to you."

Throwing his food down onto the coffee table, Leonard stood up, "But you weren't supposed to do THAT," he said through gritted teeth, "You know I want Penny back. Why would you tell her about the other women I've been with?"

Raj looked up from his own food with confusion etched in the lines on his brow. "I don't get it. You wanted to start another relationship with her without telling her everything?"

"She didn't have to know about Alice! I know she knows I used to hook up with Leslie every so often, but she didn't need to be reminded of that, and for damned sure Alice wasn't anything she ever had to hear about," Leonard sputtered.

"So, let me get this straight. You profess to love the woman across the hall, sleep with half a dozen others, including his sister," he gestured to Raj, "You told Priya you loved her over and over, even as it ended a few weeks ago when she dumped you, and then you want to get back together with Penny without being honest about everything you'd done? What happens if she finds out later on?" Howard asked. He'd always been the one with the horn-dog reputation in their circle, but Leonard's dalliances over the past few years changed that dynamic. He was happily attached to Bernadette while his bespectacled friend was still chasing every skirt that wafted his way.

Raj laughed as Leonard foundered, rendered incapable of coherent speech in his frustration and anger. "Dude, you look like a goldfish. But seriously, what would you do if Penny had been with Zack or Kurt or someone from her past and didn't tell you? What if she'd cheated on some guy with someone else and lied to you about it?"

Sheldon watched as Leonard's brown eyes widened and turned a distinct shade of green. He hunched over defensively as a note of panic entered his voice. "Why? What do you know? Has Penny been dating anyone? Why wouldn't she tell me that?"

Howard gaped. "Are you even listening to yourself? You're knocking us for telling her the same thing you would have demanded from her? That's a pretty dick move, man."

Sensing it was time for him to join the conversation, Sheldon snorted. "I'm certainly no expert on relationships, but it would seem that any romantic involvement should be based on mutual honesty and respect, Leonard."

Rounding on his roommate, Leonard bared his teeth in a vicious parody of a smile. "And what do you know about dating? You're barely human!"

Sheldon stood stiffly and looked down his nose. "I may not be Casanova, but I was raised to treat women better than that," he declared as he turned and went back to the kitchen.

Straightening out as he attempted to shrug off the evening, Leonard glowered at his friends. "You're all insane. This whole situation is crazy. Penny's mine! She and I love each other. Tonight was just a bump in the road. You'll see. We were meant to be together."

From his position facing the sink, Sheldon was glad his roommate couldn't see his expression. His eyes rolled so hard they physically hurt. He'd need to keep an eye on Leonard in the next few days. Gradually quieter thuds on the floor announced Leonard's departure to his room. He just hoped that he would use headphones for the inevitable Alanis Morissette binge-a-thon.

"Does anyone else think he sounded really creepy?" Raj asked.

Sheldon and Howard shared a look before nodding.

* * *

Bernadette grinned and took a sip of her drink. "Howie's good. I mean we're both nervous about the launch, but it'll be worth it."

"Do you really think so? Going to the Space Station seems like a really big deal. I remember how against it you said you were early on," said Penny.

That brought Bernadette's smile down. "I know, and it's intimidating, but how could I say no in the face of something that so few people have ever done? I would do anything for my little hunky monkey."

With a wry smile at the term of endearment for someone whose nose she'd once broken for being a perv, Penny reached over and grasped her hand. "Well, I want you to know that if you ever get lonely or need to get away from Howard's mother, you're welcome to crash here."

After giving Penny a thank-you hug, Bernadette turned to Amy. "What about you, Amy? Have you made any progress getting physical with your sexy praying mantis?"

At the unbidden mental image of the awkward neurologist writhing beneath Sheldon Cooper, Penny experienced two diametrically opposed physical responses. Her stomach clenched so violently she had to fight the urge to spit out her cola while simultaneously she felt a surge of heat to her lower belly. With a fleeting thought of gratitude that neither of her friends were looking at her right at the moment, Penny blinked rapidly in shock at both the fact that she just pictured Sheldon – _Sheldon!_ – making love and not only did not grimace in disgust, was actually aroused by the vision. _Where the frak did that come from?_ She thought to herself as she schooled her face to mild amusement. _I don't have the time or energy to deal with that right now._

Unaware of her bestie's sudden inner turmoil Amy's face grew sour at the question. "I wish. My frustratingly chaste boyfriend has yet to even stick his hand up my shirt to reach the proverbial 'second base'. I've even been tempted to fake a cold to somehow coerce him into rubbing my chest under the terms of our Relationship Agreement."

Another nauseating clench. Penny got up and started walking around her living area to somehow convince her insides to relax. Something about the mental images Amy insisted on pushing into their heads was making her physically queasy. She needed something stronger than cola. Turning her attention back to her two guests, Penny had to pause while Amy, oblivious to social niceties as ever, was telling a vaguely horrified-looking Bernadette, "What I wouldn't give to visit him in his office and get bent over his desk. Just the thought of his huge –"

"Does anyone need some rum?" Penny squeaked loudly, desperately needing Amy to stop talking.

"Me!" Bernadette almost shouted as she used the excuse to bolt from any further awkwardness.

Amy looked at her friends, nonplussed by their abrupt departure. "White wine only for me, please. Hard liquor tends to affect my higher cognitive processes much more adversely than wine does. If I were to overindulge in wine tonight, I would be little better than my feces-flinging monkeys at home."

By now tired of wincing at her bluntness, the two blondes just put on fake smiles and hoped the conversation would change. Penny found her emergency pinot grigio and poured half a glass for Amy before setting herself and Bernadette up with rum and colas.

After taking a cautious sip – knowing how strong Penny had a tendency to make their drinks – Bernadette offered Amy what she thought was one final consolation. "Keep at it, Amy. Eventually Sheldon will see what he's missing and then you'll get some sugar action."

"I hope you're right, Bernadette. What with his work and scheduled evenings with the boys, sometimes it feels like I can't ever catch a break," Amy whined.

" _I can't ever catch a break,"_ Penny breathed, staring at Amy, who sat on the couch looking on in all innocence. She saw damp, wavy hair pulled back and dim candle light reflecting off her glasses. The other two girls looked at her strangely as her eyes went out of focus. For the briefest of seconds, her mind played a trick on her and she saw a vision of Leonard sitting on her couch just as he was after the Arctic debacle, making the same whining complaint.

In that moment everything became crystal clear, even in the dim light. Sheldon had lied to her. Sort of. He told her the right events, but changed the names. He played her.

_Sheldon_ played her.

He told her every sleazy thing Leonard had done and disguised it as someone his sister knew to get her advice. In the process, he tricked her into seeing the situation without rose-colored glasses on, and telling him exactly what Missy's friend should do about a guy like Leonard.

Leonard, who ruined Sheldon's own experiment in the Arctic with a grade-school prank; who did everything he did with the end goal of sex; who manipulated her and God only knew how many other women with wounded puppy eyes and tales of an unloved childhood.

She flashed back to hearing him on their non-date at the movie theater, saying that he did tons of things he really didn't want to just so she would sleep with him when they were dating. She remembered him switching apartments with Raj so he could sleep with Priya without worrying. He slept with Stephanie the same night that Howard picked her up in the bar. There was the visiting professor, almost this new girl – Alice – apparently, and all the times he ignored her to flirt with whichever hot girl showed him even the slightest bit of attention, like Alicia and Missy.

Sheldon Lee Cooper, the man who couldn't lie, tricked her into verbalizing exactly what a random girl like her should do with and to a random guy like Leonard. Like the guy she was considering dating again, Penny realized with another wince. The clever little shit even used a name almost identical to her own in his trickery and she hadn't seen it

Penny forced her eyes to focus again and saw a dark-haired, bespectacled scientist seated on her couch, complaining about not being able to seduce their significant other. The fact that she had to shake her head to clear her vision and see that it was Amy instead of Leonard made her stomach churn violently. Setting her drink down on the counter with a jarring thud, she blurted, "Excuse me!" and ran to the bathroom. She just barely made it before she threw up everything she'd eaten that day. The heaves kept repeating until there was nothing left to purge.

Feeling a hand holding back her hair, Penny expected Amy to be the one comforting her, but was surprised to see Bernadette. "If you want, we can leave you alone to get some rest," she offered.

With a weak but thankful smile, Penny nodded. "Sorry about ruining girls' night, but I think that would be best. Maybe we could take a rain check?"

Bernadette nodded. "Of course. You need to rest."

Amy took the news with a great deal more reluctance, but eventually gave in at the promise of a future girl's night. "I hope that by morning your stomach has calmed down, bestie," she said on her way out the door.

A quiet "Thanks," was all Penny could offer as the door closed behind them, leaving her alone in her apartment to consider what she'd realized that evening.


	4. Chapter 4

_Knock…Knock…Knock._

"Penny."

_Knock…Knock…Knock._

"Penny."

_Knock…Knock…Knock._

"Penny."

She heaved a sigh, tailing off into a whimper. This encounter wasn't one that she could avoid, despite her desire for solitude after the earlier surge of heat when she thought of the man in question. Fortunately, she'd thrown up almost all of the alcohol she'd consumed that evening, leaving her remarkably clear-headed. She needed time to figure out what the hell caused that reaction – she still refused to call it arousal – but it seemed Sheldon wasn't about to let her figure things out in peace. "Come in, Sheldon," she called, giving in to the inevitable.

He entered slowly, peering around the door as if he was afraid of what he might find. The girls must have stopped over at 4A for their guys and told him what happened. She had to stifle a laugh when the unsteady candle light showed the mask covering his mouth. She should have expected nothing else from Sheldon Lee Cooper. At first he was crazy – Dr. Whack-a-doodle himself – but as she got to know him, Sheldon's quirks became first understandable, then tolerable, then cute. That brought her up short. _Cute? When did I get to thinking of germ-a-phobia as cute? What the hell is wrong with me? And why can't I look away?_

Oblivious to her internal confusion, Sheldon came into the living area and put a green canvas tote on her coffee table. "Before she left with Howard to brave whatever psychotic hordes are currently pillaging our lawless and chaotic city at the moment, Bernadette was kind enough to tell me that you were feeling unwell. I thought that some Sprite Zero, Saltines, and scented candles might help your stomach recover."

As tired as she was, and as much as she didn't want to be around Sheldon until she had a clear enough head to figure out what the hell happened before the girls left, she had to admit when he went into 'mother hen' mode, he was too damned cute to kick out. She looked at him and gave him a smile that made her look weaker than she actually was. "Thank you, Sweetie. That's really nice of you to do."

He looked at her with the same expression he wore every time he was secretly thinking that she just told him two and two equaled four or that the sun rose in the east that morning. "Yes it is. I'm glad you appreciate the effort."

Normally his condescending expressions made her defensive and drove her to have a snappy retort, but in the upheaval of the last few days, she let it slide. Intrinsically she knew he wasn't mean-spirited. Sheldon just didn't _do_ mean. He was a prankster, whenever he could figure out a workable prank, but he genuinely did not have a malicious bone in his body. _Oooh, bad Penny_ , she thought as the mental images of Sheldon, Sheldon's bones, and even one bone in particular joined together in her mind and sent a surge of fire from her belly on down.

The most confusing thought in her head was why she was suddenly experiencing an intense attraction to Sheldon Cooper of all people. To be fair, he was never ugly; she thought from the first that he was cute in a nerdy sort of way, but then he had to go and open his mouth. Once the crazy came out, his attractiveness definitely took a hit. In the months and years since that first meeting, however, she started to see the man behind the equations, formulae, and obsessive-compulsive rituals. She started understanding that bringing order to the world was such an imperative to his career that he let it bleed over into his everyday life. It didn't excuse some of the more ridiculous things – not learning to drive definitely topped her list, although she had to admit that going to college at 11 and becoming a professor as a teenager meant that he certainly never had what could be called a normal childhood.

He drove her absolutely up the freaking wall, but as they became friends, she realized that theirs was a friendship of unlikely equals: they presented challenges to the other that no one else in their lives did. Leonard was certainly a dishrag of a man, only too eager to lay down at the feet of any woman who would give him the time of day in the never ending quest for female affection begun by his iceberg of a mother.

"What did Amy do?" she wanted to know.

A snort. "She wanted to stay, but had her nicotine-addicted monkeys to see to. On her way out she was mumbling about electric locks on their cages or something like that. I wasn't really paying attention."

While affection, exasperation, and fatigue from the evening warred for dominance in her, Penny watched Sheldon place and light the scented candles strategically among the others still shining from earlier in the evening. When he finished made his way to the chair kitty corner from her sofa, she caught his gaze. "Why are you doing all this, Sheldon?"

The question seemed to make him uncomfortable. She watched his eyes shift left and right before his cheek twitched. He was about to at least stretch the truth. "The power's out. There could be bands of ruffians roaming the streets, looking for easy pickings for looting as we speak. You're a friend of mine, and you're feeling unwell. If you have light and companionship, you're that much less vulnerable of a target."

Penny narrowed her eyes, pinning him in place and ignoring the temporary sensation of butterflies flitting around her insides at his efforts to take care of her. "So who's with Leonard?"

That brought him up short. "I, ah, well, that is to say…no one."

Surprised at the implications, she sat back on her couch, considering what his real intention was. "So you care about me more than Leonard?"

He was surprised at her suggestion. "For many years, Leonard has been the person I would consider my best friend."

"But now…?" she trailed off, allowing him the time to finish the thought. He was hedging, and she didn't want him to wriggle free. As she started to wonder why he seemed so hesitant to finish the thought, Penny felt a growing warmth in her core. Sheldon didn't want to admit that he _cared_ for her, that he considered her not only a friend but also possibly his best friend.

Sheldon sighed. He moved to join her on the couch, first making sure she moved her feet out of his way. "Ever since the Arctic expedition, I've started reevaluating what it means to be friends, and in particular what it means to be someone's best friend. Starting with research," he trailed off at her snicker, "Yes, I did research on friendship. You of all people should know how social mores and customs elude me. Research was the best way for me to understand what is expected in a best friend relationship."

Penny smiled at his defensiveness, but refused to press him further. "You're right. I'm sorry, Sheldon."

"Anyway," he continued with a raised eyebrow, "After some further research I've come to realize that almost nothing about Leonard's behavior in the last two years has been that of a 'best friend'. Do you remember the time I helped out at the Cheesecake Factory?"

She nodded. "Yeah, you were trying to use marbles and stuff to visualize atoms or something, right?"

"Essentially, yes," he replied with an approving smile, "I ended up in the mall's ball pit for the same reason. Mall security called Leonard, and when he arrived, the guard insinuated I was mentally deficient. I think he compared me to his nephew as 'special'," he explained with finger quotes.

Penny was getting slightly lost at this point. "Sheldon, sweetie, what does this have to do with anything?"

"I was just getting to that!" he snapped before catching himself and taking a breath, "I'm sorry. When that happened, Leonard not only failed to defend me, he agreed with the man. He said I was 'extra special'."

She rolled her eyes. That sounded so much like Leonard recently that she couldn't even pretend to be surprised, let alone defend his actions in dealing with a 'stuck' Sheldon. "You know, the more I learn about things he's done – and recently – the more I want to show him exactly what Junior Rodeo is."

Somewhat perturbed, Sheldon just shook his head. "It's not worth the trouble, Penny. He's changed since the Arctic, but it hasn't been that much of an inconvenience. "

A certain wistfulness in his tone grabbed her attention, and Penny pressed the issue a little further as she settled into the couch. "You never told me the full story about the Arctic, just that they pulled a prank and made you look silly," her voice softened, trying to make him feel safe enough to tell her everything, "What really happened up there?"

Rather than unlocking the vault, the query shut it down even harder. Sheldon looked away, hiding his expression. "I told you everything. I fell victim to a practical joke from people who I once considered wonderful friends, but eventually it resolved."

She could see the walls slam up at the mention of the ill-fated expedition. He still wasn't willing to tell her everything that happened. If it came down to it, she'd either get Raj drunk or team up with Bernadette to get the full story out of Howard. They were each there, and their stories might be closer to the real truth than anything she'd heard so far. Leonard always protested that the whole thing was 'no big deal' and laughed it off as a harmless reaction to a psychotic Sheldon before clumsily trying to seduce her. Seeing the man in front of her barely hiding his brokenness and pain, though, she started to wonder if that less of the truth than she'd earlier believed. A thought occurred to her. "So, if Leonard isn't your best friend any more, and you went to this much trouble for me, what does that make me?"

He thought about his answer before regarding her with sincerity written across his face. "You are the only person I have ever known who has taken care of me without any obligation. Whether in Germany or here in California, no one else has ever gone to as much effort to help me as you have. Neither family nor significant other, you have taken me shopping, helped me in social situations, cared for and sung 'Soft Kitty' to me when I was sick, and so many more little things that I can barely remember them all. In short, you've become my best friend over the past several years."

She had no words. Penny was stupefied at the depth of his confidence in their friendship, but when put in that light, he was right; they had each done things for the other that were beyond what someone would do for a normal friend. She would never have let Wolowitz or Raj see her after falling in the tub; lying there nude waiting for 911 would have been preferable. At last she managed to stammer out a thank you. "Th – That's really nice of you to say, Sheldon. I feel the same way." He smiled, but didn't say anything in reply.

Sensing there was no more to be gained by further questions, she let the subject go. An uncomfortable silence settled as Sheldon tried to relax next to her and her earlier nausea was replaced by an increased awareness of the man on the other side of the couch. His concern had been readily apparent, and the little looks he kept giving her out of the corner of his eyes while his head remained pointed at the coffee table told her he was wondering about her physical – if not emotional – status. After a few minutes of the tense quiet, Penny decided to try an oblique strike. It took another couple moments to work up the courage and planning what to say, but eventually she was able to ask, "Sheldon?" without any noticeable tremor to her voice.

"Yes, Penny?" came the quiet answer.

She tried to concentrate, focusing on the way she'd worked out to approach the topic. Ever since realizing that Sheldon was trying to warn her off Leonard, she'd been feeling the odd warmth in her core. At first attributing the feeling to the alcohol she'd drunk with the girls, Penny had to admit that idea was a lot of bullcrap. Ever since tall, dark, and geeky had strolled into her dark apartment with his own candles along with some gentle food for her stomach, the warmth had only grown, accompanied from time to time by that strange flittering. She had to see if he was willing to continue their conversation from before. "Do you know what happened to Missy's friend? Did you pass along the advice? Did she take it?"

Sheldon's hesitation was visible. Penny could almost see the wheels turning in his head, further confirming her belief that Sheldon had given her a thinly-veiled version of her own life in order to show her Leonard wasn't worth dating again. "Ah, Peggy, right. I talked to Missy just yesterday. I think her friend heard your advice."

Oh he was learning something about speaking in subtext. Penny had to admire the way he kept up the ruse. "Do you think she understood how close she was to dating a jerk who would probably make her really unhappy?"

"I'm not sure, but I hope so," came his quiet response.

"Why?" Penny breathed, unsure of what she wanted his answer to be, "Why is it important to you what a friend of your sister's does with her life?"

That brought his gaze up to her own and she took an involuntary breath at the intensity radiating from the icy blue depths. "Because I've known her for a long time and I wouldn't want any misery to come to her if she could avoid it. Peggy is too delicate and sweet to be hurt as badly as she will most likely suffer at the hands of her ex if they get back together."

Every word the guy said was about her, she realized in that instant as she held the eye contact. Sheldon Cooper didn't lie – even if he did disguise the truth in some cases – and that held true for his eyes. Penny remembered a session from one of her early acting classes where the instructor told everyone how the eyes were the windows to the sole. _"Truly empathizing with your character means feeling every emotion they are and letting that understanding shine from your face."_ She knew right that moment that he really believed he was helping her avoid future heartache. The deeper question, one she didn't have the energy to try to answer just then, was why. There had to be a reason he was going to all this trouble for her, but after drinking and throwing up as much as she had, figuring out Sheldon's motivations would have to wait. _(Pe-L) + (S-A) = X. Solve for X indeed. I know what elements are involved in this equation,_ Penny thought to herself, _I wonder how he intends on dealing with A. Wait, why do I even care? Do I really have feelings for Sheldon Cooper? I think I do…when the frak did that happen? More importantly, what the hell am I going to do now?_

First and foremost came letting Sheldon know she understood all the levels of his efforts. Somehow, she had to make sure he understood that she figured things out and was grateful for the clarity his ruse had provided. Figuring out her own feelings – much less what to do about them – would have to come later.

Risking a flinching rejection of the contact, Penny reached out and grasped his hand, willing him to maintain his eye contact. "You can rest easy, sweetie. I think 'Peggy' got the message loud and clear," she told him with as much sincerity as she could possibly put into her own expression.

The smile he gave her wasn't his half-smirk of tolerance, but a genuine warming of his entire face. He may not have understood that she was being serious and talking about herself, but something in her face or tone reassured him.

The damned butterflies started going in her stomach again. Seeing him sitting there, risking not just one but two of his rare friendships to keep her from making what he saw – and she was now admitting to herself that he was right – as a big mistake, her courage started to rise. She was a big ol' five, after all.

"Penny –"

"Sheldon –"

They shared a small chuckle at saying each other's name simultaneously. "You go first," she said around a sudden yawn.

He opened his mouth just as she yawned, but the sound made him pause. He closed his mouth.

"Yes, Sheldon?" she asked tiredly.

"Nothing," he said with a dismissive shake of his head, "You need your rest. You should go to bed."

She tried protesting, but another yawn overcame her objections. Realizing just how tired she was, Penny gave a sleepy nod as he got to his feet and made ready to leave. "Sheldon?"

He looked inquiringly at her, prompting her to continue.

"Sing Soft Kitty to me?" she asked.

"But you're not sick," he tried to argue.

"Drunk and nauseous is a kind of sick," she told him, continuing their tradition of bending the truth to get around the strict rules for singing Soft Kitty to each other.

He made a face. "Only if you get in your actual bed. This couch has none of the lumbar support you need during REM sleep."

"Yes, Sheldon," Penny agreed with a wry grin. She knew it was just his way of making sure she would be most comfortable. After following her into her bedroom, he grabbed the garbage can from the bathroom and placed it next to her bed to help if she were to get sick in the middle of the night.

"Are you comfortable?" Sheldon asked.

"Very much so," Penny confirmed with a yawn."

He cleared his throat before singing in a gentle, soothing voice that had her slipping into slumber. "Soft kitty, warm kitty, little ball of fur; Happy kitty, sleepy kitty, purr, purr purr."

Safe and content, Penny could only whisper a "Thank you, Sheldon," before she was asleep. All the confusing feelings from that day could and would wait until later for more examination.

Satisfied that she was resting comfortably, Sheldon closed the door to her room before blowing out every candle in the apartment and letting himself out.

He had calls to make.

* * *

Across the hall, Leonard sat in his room, plotting.

Penny was slipping away from him. By refusing to spend time alone together, they didn't have any chances to discuss the beta test.

He couldn't decisively point to any one thing that told him she lost interest, but the week with barely any contact left him feeling cold. Going to Raj and Howard for advice was a waste. After the scene in the apartment the week before, neither wanted to help him get Penny back at all. His only resource was romantic comedy movie plots.

If there was one thing Hollywood taught him, it was to not give up. The persistent hero eventually got the girl, even if it took a little – or a lot – of convincing.


	5. Chapter 5

'The Incident' as she'd taken to calling the disastrous gathering at Leonard and Sheldon's combined with her binge and purge immediately afterward, happened on a Friday. In the week immediately afterward, odd things started happening everywhere.

For one, Penny started noticing Leonard showed up wherever she was.

Saturday morning she left to go to the grocery store, he magically appeared on the landing, coincidentally just leaving for his own food run. "I thought you guys got your groceries together so that Sheldon was sure he was getting the same stuff he always got," she pointed out.

She could see the wheels turning in his head as he tried to come up with a reason why he could conceivably be breaking Sheldon's precious routine. "Well, I just wanted to do something different," uttered with all the false bravado she'd seen in him numerous times before, was the only response he had.

Giving him the slip by ducking into the feminine products aisle and calling in a page for him, then running out the front doors proved laughably easy as he tried to argue with the customer service representative.

Sunday morning he was there when she stopped at the coffee shop for her morning latte. Claiming once again that he just wanted something different, Leonard made to sit down with her. When she saw him pull out the chair that blocked a quick exit, she made up an audition she was late for and ran out.

It was a flimsy lie, but she honestly didn't expect anything to happen because of it. Penny spent the morning at the public library researching not only upcoming auditions but also online and night college courses. She hid out there until well past lunchtime, secure in her knowledge that none of the guys would deign to visit that building, but it was all for naught. When she got back to the building, Leonard was waiting for her. The door had barely closed behind her when he barged in without knocking.

"You weren't at any auditions this morning," he accused.

She only managed to catch her jaw at the last moment. Not only was he waiting for her, he must have been looking through the peephole for her return. A cold shiver went down her spine. "Of course I was. Why would I lie about that?"

"I don't know. Why don't you tell me?" Anger rolled off of him in waves, making the Leonard Hofstadter that stood in front of her unlike any she'd ever seen.

Penny actually shrank back a bit, not knowing what to expect or how to read this version of Leonard. She walked around the breakfast bar, putting a physical barrier between them, but trapping herself. It wasn't perfect but it would have to do. "You're starting to weird me out, Leonard. What does it matter to you where I was?"

Seeing her reaction, Leonard's demeanor shifted. "It matters to me because we were supposed to be trying a Beta Test of our relationship, and it feels like you're avoiding me. If you're lying to me about where you were, what am I supposed to think?"

Trying to get some of her poise back, Penny went on the offensive. "What makes you think I wasn't at an audition, anyway?"

That made him uneasy. His eyes immediately left hers and he started fidgeting. After a few moments he mumbled something into his hand.

"You want to try that again? You know, with actual words?" She shot at him standing up to her full height to take advantage of the significant gap in their statures.

"I may or may not have called your agent," he finally muttered when he realized she wasn't going to give him any easy escape.

"YOU WHAT?!" Penny exploded around the bar, walking right up to the now embarrassed scientist.

Eyes darting back and forth as if something in her apartment would give him the answer, he finally grasped something he thought would help him out. "If you were at an audition I wanted to show up to wish you luck, so I called your agent. Imagine my surprise when she said you haven't had an audition in months. I'll ask again: Do you want to tell me where you actually were?" he drew himself up, trying to look as impressive as possible when his eye line met her chin.

Needing to end this train of thought before it got any further entrenched in his paranoid little brain. She marched up to him and looked him squarely in the eye, brushing aside the thought that he really needed to clean his glasses once in a while. "Listen to me, Leonard Hofstadter: I never agreed to your Beta Test idea. You have no claim over me, and no ability to dictate my time. If I say I had an audition, I had a damn audition. Understand me?" She punctuated each word with a finger poke to his chest.

"Were you with another guy?" he asked weakly, trying to regain some control over the conversation. He rubbed his chest where she jabbed.

Her eyes narrowed. "What would it matter if I was? We're not together yet."

Ignoring the jealousy raging through him, he tried to use that as an opening to talk about the Beta Test. "Let's talk about that. Have you had any time to think more about getting back together with me?"

If she could see herself in the mirror, Penny would have laughed at the speed with which her eyes went from narrowed to huge. "You actually think that's something we need to talk about after your little stunt from today?"

"No, probably not." He could see the answer when it was spelled out for him.

Penny folded her arms and fixed him with another glare. He finally took the hint and turned to leave. "Oh Leonard?" she called out in a deceptively sweet voice before he could close the door behind him.

"Yes, Penny?" he said with far too much eagerness in his voice as he stuck his head back in.

Her formerly saccharine tone turned cold enough to frost glass. "If you ever come into my apartment again without knocking, I'll show you what 'Junior Rodeo' was all about. Capisce?"

With a huge nervous swallow, Leonard nodded meekly and closed the door.

* * *

Monday morning saw Penny headed out to the post office to send a gift home for her father's birthday. It would have been easier to email a gift card, but the lack of a personal touch still rankled her. When she saw the line snaking multiple times around a table before it even made it to the serpentine column separated by poles and ribbons, her shoulders drooped.

The sound of the throat clearing behind her was eerily familiar. "Long line, huh?"

Penny spun around, her eyes wide with shock. She'd been so sure she gave him the slip this morning, waiting until the door across the hall had opened and closed, plus another twenty minutes to give them time to get out to Leonard's car so that she could leave without Leonard following her again. "What – what are you doing here?"

He actually looked hurt. "It's a public post office. I had to mail a letter. Why shouldn't I be here?"

"Isn't there a post office closer to the university?" she continued asking.

"I stayed home today," he answered, his tone growing increasingly uncertain.

"Oh," she said, turning around in hopes that would end the conversation. On the surface it was a plausible argument, but the cold lump that had taken up residence in her belly ever since 'The Incident' started getting heavier and heavier.

It only increased when she heard from behind – and below, an unkind part of her brain supplied – her a pleading voice ask, "So about that Beta Test…?"

* * *

It got so bad that Penny started seeing his face and hearing his voice everywhere. Her nerves got so frazzled she started losing sleep. There was an emergency key to her place over at 4A, and while it had proven useful in the past, right now its presence in the other apartment was giving her a lot of heartburn.

Merely locking and dead-bolting her door wasn't enough; she started putting a chair against the handle at night and putting her trusty softball bat by her bed. Outside her apartment, the slightest sound behind her made her jump and whirl around, always worried that he'd followed her again.

Day by day she kept hoping for relief, but he was relentless.

* * *

While Leonard usually only went to the Cheesecake Factory for dinner on Tuesdays, he started eating lunch at the restaurant every single day. On Tuesday, he showed up for lunch and dinner. His normal expression – that of a kicked puppy trying to impress – was replaced by a gleam in his eye that unsettled her at first and grew creepier with each passing day.

She ended up spending as little time as possible at his table, even asking Sherry, her daytime manager, to call her over if it looked like she was about to get caught in a long visit. If she ever got out of the situation, Penny vowed to give up stalker movies forever.

Dragging herself home, her increasing frustration with Leonard's pseudo-stalking made her uncomfortable spending time alone in her apartment. She immediately thought of Sheldon and the tender way in which he'd taken care of her a few days previously, but she wouldn't have gone into 4A and risked Leonard's presence even for a role in Hollywood's next big blockbuster.

After managing to escape the Cheesecake Factory without being sucked into another conversation about why a Beta Test in which she and Leonard would submit complaints to each other in the form of software bug forms was the best way to date, she needed some friendly contact, so she pulled out her cell phone and called her tall, lanky neighbor. She even managed to – mostly – ignore the butterflies in her stomach that made their presence known more and more every time she thought about Sheldon's surprising gentleness.

After two rings, she heard, "Hello?" in her ear, but it wasn't the muted Texan twang she was expecting. Rather, it was the flat monotone of her debatably chosen bestie. "Hello, Penny." Somehow Amy's voice always managed to sound as drab as her wardrobe.

"Oh, hi Amy," Penny said, managing to hide most of her surprise, "I was actually hoping to call Sheldon. Is her around?"

On the other end of the line, Amy felt the ever-present need to try to impress her bestie, fearing that if the blonde wasn't proud of her, she would lose interest and start spending more time with Bernadette. Knowing what she did about Penny – remembered mostly from their three-way date with Sheldon and the conversation about her prior sexual partners – Amy figured the best way to win her bestie's approval was to claim to be about to engage in a torrid night of lovemaking, despite the reality being as far from that falsehood as possible. "Penny! Sheldon's just in the bathroom. He's…rinsing with Listerine to sufficiently disinfect himself before we begin a scintillating night of making passionate love to each other's genitalia."

Penny had to gulp back a sudden urge to repeat her night of vomiting. The thought of Sheldon making love wasn't repellant in the slightest – she'd have to revisit THAT thought later – but the mental image of Sheldon and Amy writhing together in a lover's embrace was deeply unsettling. Since Amy was on the phone, she didn't have to hide the full-face grimace that always accompanied Amy's lack of discretion. "Sounds…great, Ames. I'll just let you get to it," she answered with as much false enthusiasm as she could muster, hiding the sudden queasiness ravaging her insides.

She'd had that feeling often enough over the course of her life to know jealousy for what it was. The gnawing, grinding, twisting feeling in her gut was no stranger. Part of her wanted to believe it was just envy that someone was getting some when she'd been in a long dry spell, but the butterflies told another story.

Learning her lesson from hiding in a nowhere relationship with Kurt and a disaster of a relationship with Leonard, Penny didn't delude herself about feelings any more. She was attracted to Sheldon. He'd given her no indications he returned the feelings, however. There was that moment the night of 'The Incident' when he seemed about to say something but changed his mind. Other than that there was no single instance she could point to as a clear sign that Sheldon was attracted to her. The man had even grabbed a handful of her boob and an eyeful of her ass and not pushed for more.

The only question that remained, she mused as she threw the phone down and walked to the kitchen, was what to do about it. Being attracted to a man who, for all intents and purposes, was impervious to feminine whiles sucked, although Amy seemed like she was about to plant her flag on Mount Sheldon. The unbidden thought of the two of them entwined again brought the familiar nausea back. Barely sparing a glance at the rum and wine after her earlier excesses, she poured herself a diet cola and sat down to think.

* * *

The following Thursday, Sheldon was preparing to save his work on his office laptop and head to lunch when there was a knock at his door. Perplexed – he didn't usually receive visitors at his office – he got up to answer it. When he opened the door his surprise only grew at seeing a raccoon-faced Howard and Raj standing there.

"Hey, Sheldon. Do you have a minute?" The diminutive engineer asked in a strangely nasal voice, due to the bandage across his nose.

Sheldon looked at Raj, who only nodded, before checking his watch. Seeing that they still had twenty minutes before normal lunch time, he stood aside and allowed the two friends to enter and take a seat on the other side of the mismatched desks. "What's going on, Howard?" he asked when they were all settled.

He was taken aback when Howard seemed genuinely nervous to bring up the topic which had obviously brought him to their office. "Well, ah, the thing is, have you seen Penny lately?"

Sheldon nodded. "Other than our usual Tuesday dinner at the Cheesecake Factory, I've only seen her in passing since the night at the apartment when we all seemed to discuss Leonard's dating history. Why do you ask?"

"Well, Bernadette and I were on our weekly date night a couple days ago, and we went to the Cheesecake Factory. Penny was working, and she's really not doing well," Howard explained.

Looking perplexed, Sheldon leaned forward and pressed for more information. "What do you mean not doing well?"

"She's a wreck," Howard said bluntly as he realized that dancing around the topic wasn't going to get anywhere with Sheldon, "She's pale, has bags under her eyes, and even looks like she's lost weight."

Sheldon's eyes got wider as he blinked. "I thought something was wrong, but since I didn't get to talk to her much, and she didn't spend any more time than necessary giving us our food Tuesday night, I wasn't sure. MeeMaw and my mother always taught me not to tell a woman she doesn't look good unless she's physically ill, and not even then."

Howard shook his head. "It's more than that. She's jumpy. When I went over to say 'hello', she jumped and took a swing. Almost broke my nose again."

"Ah, yes. I too have painful experience of the dangers of startling Penny," Sheldon confirmed with a grim nod.

Raj took the opportunity to chime in. "Could this have anything to do with the mysterious absence of our usual companion the last few days?"

The wheels spun in his head as he finally put the pieces together. "Drat! I thought he'd give me more time. It's only been a few days."

Howard looked confused. "What are you talking about? You thought who would give you more time?"

Gesturing for the other two to join him on his side of the desk, Sheldon opened his laptop and brought up a program he'd just installed earlier in the week. "After the way Leonard was acting around Penny, and after as distraught as she was that night, I took the dubious liberty of…I believe the vernacular term is 'lo-jacking'…his phone and car."

Raj remained silent as Howard gaped. "You're actually tracking his movements?"

Sheldon looked at them with firmness in his gaze that brooked no argument. "Penny is our friend. Do either of you honestly trust Leonard around her after the night last week?"

Knowing there was only one correct answer, Raj and Howard each shook their heads.

With an uncharacteristic grunt, Sheldon gestured back to the screen. "His PIN was laughably easy to guess, and that enabled me to do whatever I wanted to his phone. Right now he's at the Cheesecake Factory, and if I pull up the historical data," he paused while the program ran the new instructions, "I can see that he's been there at this time each day for the last week. Other than that his movements are unusual for him," he said, rubbing his cheek with one hand, "I wonder if it's time to implement Phase 3."

Howard and Raj shared a look before Raj rolled his eyes and replied, "Okay, I guess it's my turn to ask: what's Phase 3?"

A mischievous glint appeared in Sheldon's eyes that had the other two swallowing nervously. "There's a mechanic in Burbank who owes me a favor. If I get too suspicious of Leonard, he's going to install a device that will allow me to take complete control of Leonard's car. I'll be able to shut it down and lock him in for any period of time that I deem necessary. The contraption is equipped with a cellular antenna, so I'll be able to operate it from my phone. Yes," he said, holding up his hand as Raj started to speak, "It's just like on Bait Car, and there is an app for that."

Raj and Howard geeked out over the app for a few more minutes before Sheldon shut it down, his mind whirring on what to do about Leonard. "So it seems my roommate is, if not actually stalking, at least following Penny around, which is probably what led to her current struggles. Does that sound about right?"

The other two nodded. "We figured you'd be the only one who could get through to her," Howard explained, "You and she have always had this weird anger-respect thing going on."

Sheldon pursed his lips. "I can try. She's been strangely absent, but I will attempt to speak to her."

The matter concluded, the three scientists went to the cafeteria for lunch, the glaring absence of their usual fourth troubling them all.

* * *

It was finally too much.

Penny thought she'd given Leonard enough of a hint that she wasn't ready to talk to him, especially about the Beta Test nonsense. She was hoping for tonight to finally be the night he got the message and backed off.

No such luck.

Two hours into her evening shift at the Cheesecake Factory, just when she was breathing easier and starting to relax, a familiar bespectacled face appeared at the bar. He saw her and waved, thunderclouds forming on his face.

Giving him what she hoped was an innocent smile, she gestured that it would take her just a minute and ducked back to the kitchen. She made it as far as the manager's office before she burst into tears.

"Oh honey. What's wrong?" Pam, the evening manager asked as she rushed around her desk. Penny liked the matronly woman who originally hailed from Iowa. They understood each other without needing to translate the things she had to explain to anyone not from the Midwest, and in a weird way, Pam reminded her of her grandmother.

"He's out there again, Pam. I just can't do this anymore!" Penny said between hiccoughing sobs. "He's following me everywhere!"

Rubbing her back, Pam tried to console her. "It's okay, Penny. I'll call the police for you."

Penny took a deep breath. "Give me the time to call a friend of mine from a costume company. I have to get the hell out of here, and if he sees me leave, he'll just follow. I need to escape, Pam. I'm so sorry to have to leave in the middle of a shift, but this is too much for me right now."

"I absolutely understand, darlin'. I had a guy pull some sneaky stuff on me when I was young and beautiful," Pam grinned, "You do what you need to do and give me the signal to call the cops."

With a grateful nod, Penny pulled out her phone and dialed a number. "Tara? It's me, Penny. I'm calling in my favor. How soon can you get to the Cheesecake Factory in Pasadena with a brunette wig and a change of clothes in my size?"

Thirty minutes (and several waitresses delivering requests for Penny's presence from Leonard) later, Tara, Pam and Penny were staring at a mirror, marveling at how quickly the costume artist had transformed Penny from a blonde waitress into a dark-haired biker. Someone Leonard wouldn't look twice at, Penny was sure.

"On such short notice, not too damned bad if I do say so myself," Tara drawled.

Penny gave her a bear hug. "Thank you so much! I owe you now," she promised.

Turning to her boss, she explained her idea for getting out without being seen. "If you call the cops now, hopefully I can slip out the back. He shouldn't notice me getting into my car if they show up soon enough to distract him. Can you get one of the other waitresses to tell him that I'm dealing with a problem in the back, but that I'll be out soon enough?"

Pam nodded. "You got it, Penny. I'll make sure the creep doesn't see you. I'll just tell them he's been showing up asking for the same waitress over and over. That way they'll take my statement instead of yours."

It all worked according to plan. Penny was able to escape without Leonard seeing her, and she waited in the alley behind the restaurant until the telltale shape of a squad car pulled up. When the two police officers went inside, she took the opportunity to run to her car and pulled out without a backward glance.

She briefly thought of going back to the apartment and talking to Sheldon, but then Amy's voice reminded her of their…activities…and her stomach turned sour. Without a solid plan, she drove aimlessly west before ending up at the beach by the Santa Monica pier.

Putting her car into park, Penny got out and walked onto the sand, needing the calming influence of the waves to help sort out her complicated thoughts.

"Damn it!" she shouted as she threw her wig off to the side.

"You sound like you could use a friend. Anything you want to talk about?" a voice asked.


	6. Chapter 6

While Penny usually went to the beach at Santa Monica when she was troubled, this night had been a dismal failure. The sand hadn't calmed her like it usually did. The waves hadn't worked their customary soothing magic.

Her heart was still pounding at the absurd lengths she'd taken to avoid Leonard's increasingly creepy attempts to talk to her. She thought she'd made it clear she wasn't ready, but he didn't seem to want to take that for an answer. Even in her disguise, she had to keep turning her attention from the stunning sunset to look over her shoulder to see if he'd somehow managed to follow her there.

It was tough to believe that so much had gone wrong in one week. That's really all it had been. One lousy week from when Sheldon called her to help with Missy's 'friend Peggy' – she snorted at the nearly transparent ruse. Transparent in hindsight, but that was always 20/20.

Sheldon.

Just thinking the guy's name sent the butterflies in her stomach fluttering, which really didn't help her still-rattled nerves. As if to torture her more, her subconscious started playing a highlight reel of all the times she'd gone toe-to-toe with her lanky neighbor. No man had ever challenged her in the way he had, whether it was stringing her panties on a telephone line, grabbing her boob and taking a peek at her tattoo, or pushing her to admit she was settling for second best in life. His piercing blue eyes never failed to send shivers down her spine. In the past she'd attributed that to random drafts or some Jedi mind trick of his, but now she knew it for what it was: physical attraction.

She was attracted to Sheldon, but he was dating Amy. Leonard was stalking her and Sheldon was with Amy. She'd never dated anyone quite as lanky as Sheldon, but just thinking about his eyes and the ever so rare genuine smile of his made her heart skip a beat. The utter futility of her situation piled onto the rest of the evening and in a fit of frustrated anger, she ripped off the wig and threw it to one side. "Damn it!" Penny shouted at the top of her lungs.

"You sound like you could use a friend. Anything you want to talk about?" a voice asked.

Whirling around, she saw a woman approaching. A stunningly beautiful woman, she had to admit. Silky blonde hair framed her face, falling down in waves. Her eyes were a piercing blue and she had slightly prominent front teeth that showed more when she smiled at Penny's confusion. She was dressed casually in tan capri pants and a royal blue polo that made her eyes glow even more. The woman's athletic, toned body moved with a catlike grace – no, that wasn't quite right, she thought – the woman moved like a panther. Every step was that of someone in total control of every movement. Her body looked toned but not overly so; strong and muscular, yet soft. Watching as the newcomer approached, Penny realized that this was a person not to be taken lightly. "Oh, um, sorry about that. I thought I was alone."

"Obviously," her new companion said, "What's going on?"

Penny shook her head. "Oh, you don't want to hear about my troubles."

"If I didn't want to, I wouldn't have asked," the blonde said with a smile as she sat down in the sand next to her. "You're in my favorite spot on the beach. Aren't the waves so soothing?"

"Very, but it doesn't seem to be working today," Penny grumped.

"Talk to me. You sound like you could use a friend and I've been told I'm a good listener," the other woman said.

Detecting a hint of accent and wanting some time to get her thoughts in order, Penny deflected. "What is that accent?"

"Oh I just spent some time in Australia," the other woman responded easily, "I seem to pick up accents easily."

"That'd be a nice talent to have. I'm an aspiring actress. Six years and all I have to show for it is a hemorrhoid commercial. If I could do accents it might help me get more jobs," Penny answered, "What's your name?"

"Thought you'd never ask. I'm Sarah, and you are?" her new friend introduced herself.

"Penelope Collins, but everyone just calls me Penny," she grinned as they shook hands.

"So, Penny," Sarah pressed, "Why are you cursing and throwing a wig on the beach? Are you hiding from someone?"

"From someone else and myself, actually," she said, "It's…"

"Complicated?" Sarah filled in wryly as Penny trailed off.

"How'd you know?" Penny affirmed. Finding a kindred spirit randomly on her favorite spot on the beach was too much to hope for, but she wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth. Not that she would call any part of Sarah horse-like. The other blonde woman was gorgeous enough that Penny felt a little intimidated.

"I completely understand the sentiment," Sarah's understanding smile widened, "My life has been way too complicated at times, too. What's going on?"

With a huge sigh Penny started talking. "Where do I even begin?"

"I think the beginning would be okay. I have all night. My husband is overseas on a…business trip," Sarah said, trailing off at the end.

* * *

Sheldon was sitting at his desk when Leonard stormed in, slamming the door behind him. "Damn it!"

Taken aback at the violence of his roommate's return, Sheldon sat back and watched as Leonard stormed around the living area. If it had been possible, he was sure steam would have been shooting out the other man's ears, like some Looney Tunes character. "Leonard?" he finally asked.

Whirling around, Leonard fixed him with a wild-eyed stare. "I just got done being harassed by the police like a criminal at the Cheesecake Factory!"

"Did you rob them?" Sheldon asked, masking his knowledge of Leonard's travel patterns with his genuine confusion about police involvement.

"No I did not rob the Cheesecake Factory Sheldon!" Leonard answered petulantly.

"I don't understand," he said, keeping his voice calm and even to avoid prodding Leonard any further.

"Apparently someone told the manager that I've been stalking Penny, and tonight she called the police on me! I was almost arrested! The only reason you're not bailing me out of jail right now is that Penny wasn't even there tonight," Leonard fumed.

When Sheldon remained silent, Leonard took that as a cute to continue. "And when I went to have a drink with Koothrappali and Wolowitz, they started acting like I did something wrong!"

"What do they think you did?" Sheldon continued in his calmest voice, focusing all his attention on not giving anything away.

"They think I've been stalking her too! When I told them I was just trying to find her so we could have that talk that keeps getting postponed, Raj shook his head and that dick Howard actually laughed before they both told me I needed to get over myself and move on. They should have supported me but instead those assholes thought it was the funniest damned thing they'd heard all day," Torn between anger and resignation, timidity always won in Leonard. He flopped down into the easy chair and put his head in his hands.

"Let me ask you something, Leonard," Sheldon began. "Why are you fighting this so hard? You and Penny tried a relationship once and it didn't work. Is another attempt logically any more likely to succeed?"

Posture brimming with defeat, Leonard gestured to himself. "Look at me. I'm a short, shortsighted, lactose intolerant physicist with no athletic skills. If I can't make this work when destiny practically dropped Penny into my lap, what hope do I ever have of finding true love?"

"Real life isn't a Disney cartoon," Sheldon argued. "If you have to work so hard to convince someone that you're meant to be together doesn't the fact that the other person disagrees and can live their life never giving in to this supposed preordained set of events argue against the very concept?"

"Why am I even talking about romance with you? You're practically a cyborg as it is. I'm just pissed that Raj and Howard don't have my back with Penny," Leonard groused.

"All right. Why is it you think you need their support?" Sheldon asked, ignoring what Leonard had obviously intended to be a slight and moving to the kitchen to make his distressed roommate a cup of tea. The manners he'd learned as a child were ingrained so deeply the action was automatic. Even though he disliked Leonard at this point, he still would offer him a hot beverage.

Incredulous, Leonard turned wide eyes up to him. "Because they're my friends, Sheldon! Friends support friends, especially when one of them is meant to be with the hottest woman any of them have ever dated!"

"You're a man of science, Leonard, not a hippie," Sheldon persisted with a shake of his head, "and as such, you should understand there is no such thing as an all-controlling destiny for us all. If Penny chooses not to be with you – as you put it – doesn't that throw the whole concept of 'meant to be' out the window anyway?" He handed over the tea, which Leonard accepted with the barest hint of a nod.

* * *

"Okay, well, five years ago I moved into a new apartment in Pasadena. I'd just gotten out of a bad relationship and was looking for a fresh start. There were these two guys in the apartment across the hall. Sheldon is tall, thin, more than a little OCD in his behaviors, and he's brilliant. Seriously, he's certifiable as both a whack-a-doodle and a genius. Leonard is shorter, with glasses, and he's also really smart. They're both physicists at CalTech."

Sarah's eyes blinked at how Penny's voice changed during the description. When she described Sheldon, her eyes had gone soft and her voice more than a touch wistful, but when she talked about Leonard, she became guarded and tense, even throwing a couple looks over her shoulder. It wasn't hard to guess from whom she was hiding.

"Leonard was a complete flirt from the start. Anything and everything he did was to impress me. He even convinced Sheldon to go get my TV back from my meat head ex. They both came back without pants," Penny paused as Sarah started laughing at the image. Soon she joined in, remembering just how forlorn Leonard looked at not bringing back the television. "I know, I know. It was pathetic, but that's how Leonard rolls. His mother didn't really give a crap about him, and since she's a psychologist, she was able to use her completely hands-off parenting as an excuse to do studies on her own son about how a child raised without affection develops."

Wide-eyed, Sarah's laughter faded and she gaped. "That's…that's barbaric. She should lose her license for experimenting on her own kid like that."

"I know," Penny nodded, "and that explains a lot of Leonard. His whole life is a never ending search for the affection, approval, and love he never had from his mother."

"So where does this poor, love-starved little guy fit into your current woes?" Sarah asked.

"Well, after a couple of years, we started dating," Penny explained, "It started right after they got back from an experiment in the Arctic. Something happened up there that made Sheldon excited, and after he jumped the gun and sent an email to all these big science people, Leonard had to admit it was a prank. Sheldon was humiliated and quit the university and moved back to Texas. Anyway, I wouldn't say yes to Leonard until he made things right with Sheldon. That should have been my first clue."

Sarah's wince at Penny admitting she dated Leonard turned into a full-blown grimace by the end of her statement. "Yeah, I can see this going badly."

"Only too right," Penny confirmed, "It didn't seem that way at the time, but after we broke up – when I wasn't ready to tell him that I loved him and he got all jealous and clingy – I started looking back and realized how much he did with the sole aim of getting into my bed. That was right about the time I started really drinking heavily, and he seemed to encourage it."

Her new – friend? – gave a sympathetic smile and put her hand on Penny's forearm. "I hope things have gotten better since then?"

"Yeah. I've stopped drinking as much, and even though we were thinking about getting back together, Sh- someone helped me see some of Leonard's behavior in a new light."

She tried to correct her slip on the fly but Sarah was too quick. "Sheldon convinced you not to give Leonard another try?"

* * *

Something in the way Sheldon continued to dismiss his belief that Penny and he were destined for love started raising Leonard's hackles. He started looking at Sheldon with wary eyes. Everything started clicking together. Priya's random Skype call to the group – which she'd never done before – along with Penny's strange refusal to continue their Beta Test conversation and now Sheldon's lack of support began adding up to one answer. He had no real proof, but somehow, some way, he knew that Sheldon was behind everything. "You did this," he accused, setting down his tea.

"I did what?" Sheldon was determined to maintain his innocence as long as possible. Pretending ignorance of Leonard's thoughts was a delaying tactic.

"I don't know, but I know you had something to do with Penny's pulling back. Priya didn't just call Raj to say hello to the group, did she?" Leonard was on his feet now, approaching his taller roommate.

"What makes you think I had anything to do with her calling? I was never her best friend while the two of you were engaging in coitus," Sheldon protested.

"You're trying to screw up my chances with Penny," Leonard alleged softly, not sure where his confidence in the accusation was coming from but the feeling was similar to making a leap of intuition in one of his experiments. He might not know where he was going to land but he knew there was something solid in front of him. As he thought more about Sheldon and Penny and their odd friendship, a heavy ball of dread settled in his stomach. "What I don't understand is what you get out of it."

"There's a big misunderstanding here, Leonard. I barely said a word the other night," Sheldon continued to deflect.

"You've done some hateful things before, Sheldon, but this has to be the most hateful. I never knew you were this much of a sadist, screwing with two other people's destinies just because you could!" More pieces clicking in place, Leonard felt the ball grow heavier.

Tired of the protests and denials, Sheldon stood taller. "There is no need to go throwing around insults like that, Leonard. We are men of science. We should be able to have a rational, reasonable conversation."

"Then what should I call you for trying to keep Penny from me? Hateful and sadistic seem appropriate. Would pathetic, neurotic, controlling, and obsessive make you feel better?" With arms folded, Leonard stood as tall as his stature allowed to present as challenging of a posture to Sheldon as possible.

"I was far from the only person at that dinner. Are you going to have this same aggressive, accusatory conversation with each and every single person in our group?" Sheldon asked as he moved to the other side of the living area, determined to erase the damning equation from his whiteboard. It was the one piece of evidence that Leonard could conceivably have to support his claims.

"No one else in our group is as hateful, sadistic, or borderline psychotic as you, damn it, so no, I don't think that will be necessary!" Leonard's voice always seemed to get louder in direct proportion to his agitation, and tonight was no exception. By the end of that sentence he was practically shouting.

* * *

Penny hoped the fading red, yellow, and orange sunlight streaking from the ocean hid her blush. "Yeah. He pretended his sister's friend was about to date someone just like Leonard to get me to see things he'd done in a new light. It was enough to get me to back away from Leonard. Unfortunately," she continued as she took a breath, "Leonard seems to have assumed that meant he should follow me everywhere to show his devotion."

Sarah snorted. "I've had guys stalk me before. One of them almost ruined my marriage before it got started. Their reasons don't matter. They just get crazy. You need to nip this in the bud, like yesterday."

Penny nodded in resignation. "I've come to that conclusion myself. I just don't know how I'm going to do it. It should be either in public or in a place I can control."

Cocking her head to one side, Sarah gave Penny a piercing look. "You haven't told me any more about Sheldon," she said, wanting to steer the conversation from the guy Penny wanted to avoid and onto the guy who made Penny sigh wistfully.

With a chuckle, Penny shook her head. "What is there to say, really? He's got a schedule and routine for everything. He draws up agreements and contracts for friends, roommates, and his girlfriend. Sheldon is one of those beautiful mind people. He's going to win a Nobel Prize someday."

"He's that smart?" Sarah breathed, obviously impressed.

Penny nodded. "He'd have to lose a million IQ points to not be a genius."

Sarah watched the other woman closely, seeing the obvious signs of a woman struggling against her own feelings. It was a struggle she was only too familiar with. "You really care for him," Sarah said quietly, watching as the realization dawned.

"He's my best friend," Penny admitted after a few quiet minutes. "When the hell did that happen?"

Her new friend chuckled. "Probably when you weren't looking. I know the feeling. Do you think he's more than just a best friend?"

"I've never thought of Sheldon that way! At least, I didn't until the past couple weeks," Penny protested, "He's tall, lanky, plays video games all the time, totally geeky, and is smarter than I can even begin to understand."

"Does he treat you well?"

"I used to think he didn't. I mean, we got into a prank war once and he hung my underwear on a phone line. He's always talked down to me, but the more I got to know him and see him around other people the more I realized that's just how he is. He's literally the smartest man in any room, so to him, everyone is dumber than he is. When I called him out on it, he said he never meant to insult me, so maybe he just was trying to push me to better myself. I don't really know!" Penny buried her head in her hands.

"But does he treat you well?" Sarah persisted. "When you need a friend is he there?"

"Always," Penny smiled. "When I fell in the shower and dislocated my shoulder, he drove me to the ER, even though he doesn't have a driver's license and hates the thought of driving."

"See?" the other woman nodded.

Even the fading sunlight couldn't hide Penny's blush as she remembered the rest of that evening. She buried her head in her hands, but couldn't hide from her new friend's scrutiny.

"Oh now I have to hear the rest of that story," Sarah teased.

Penny tried to get away with mumbling into her arm, but Sarah's pointed stare fixed her in place and forced her to come clean. "Ok, ok. When he was helping me out of the tub, he accidentally grabbed a handful of my right boob and saw the tattoo on my ass."

Sarah burst out laughing, in equal parts at the story and at Penny's embarrassment. "Most of the guys I know would have tried to take advantage of that."

"See that's the thing! I thought that too, but he hasn't mentioned it since other than to say some crap about the hero always peeking," insisted Penny.

"Are you going to see if he reciprocates your feelings?" Sarah wanted to know.

She gave it a thought. For the briefest moment, Penny had a beautiful dream of going to Sheldon and saying that she had feelings for him. She got as far as his facial expression before the bubble burst. "No," she shook her head. "He's dating a girl named Amy now. I don't really know what kind of relationship they have, only that he drew up a contract for how they would act and she's had to practically hire a lawyer to get him to agree to increase their physicality."

"Ouch," Sarah sympathized.

"He wouldn't be interested in someone like me anyway," Penny said sadly, her previous good humor blowing into the sunset like a light fog. "I'm a community college dropout with no career and he's a world-class physicist who's tearing the veil off nature to stare at the face of God. His words," she quickly explained to Sarah's confused look.

"So you don't want to give it a shot at all?" Sarah pushed. "Let me tell you from experience that tall, dark, and geeky is a wonderful combination. Especially the guys with long, dextrous fingers well practiced from hours of video games. Think about everything those fingers could be doing to you..." she trailed off and started giggling as Penny's eyes glazed over and her blush returned full force, visible even in the dim light.

"His girlfriend is also a scientist. There's just no reason he'd even consider dating me," Penny answered. "No career, no boyfriend, no prospects. God, I'm such a mess! Why are you wasting time talking to me again?"

"I don't think you're a mess. You're in a bad place right now, but we've all gone through rough times. The only real question is: what are you going to do now, Penny? Where does Penny Collins go from here?" Sarah asked.

* * *

"You keep using the word hateful like it means something, but I've remained calm and tried to have a mature conversation. You're the one spitting vile insults and cursing at me," Sheldon pointed out over his shoulder as he continued erasing. Childhood experience had taught him that making eye contact with an aggressive person would only provoke them to physical violence.

Perturbed by his roommate's strange fixation with erasing a whiteboard while they were talking and growing more and more annoyed at being ignored, Leonard started scanning to see what was so damned important that it had to be erased that second. Just as Sheldon got to the final corner, he saw the tail end of one oddly familiar equation disappear. _(Pe-L) + (S-A) = X. Solve for X._

His eyes bulged, his stomach dropped and for the first time, Leonard was certain. "You _are_ trying to make it so that Penny won't consider dating me! That equation! Penny minus Leonard plus Sheldon minus Amy equals X!" Shock overrode all other responses and he stared impotently at where the equation had just been on the board. When he finally found control over his body again, Leonard turned to his roommate and with a deceptive calmness to his voice, asked a familiar question. "Sheldon? Want to catch me up?"

_Drat!_ Standing to his full height, Sheldon turned and regarded his roommate warily. He'd never known Leonard to be prone to physicality, but this situation was entirely new. "There was nothing to mastermind, nothing to scheme, and nothing to plot. You saw what happened the other night, Leonard. The group of us merely recalled some of your more salacious indiscretions. It wasn't anything Penny didn't know about. You can hardly accuse me of cooking some elaborate plot to keep you and Penny apart if Raj, Priya, Bernadette, and Howard all joked about some things that were common knowledge."

"You hateful, sadistic, spiteful, psychotic jerk-off!" Leonard was spitting from his mouth, so strong was his anger. "You got everyone to gang up on me and make me look like a douche to Penny! You want her for yourself!"

At this, Sheldon just scoffed. "Now you're living in a dream world."

While that took out some of Leonard's fire, he remained almost vibrating with emotion. "Look me in the eye and tell me that you're not attracted to Penny."

"I can't do that," Sheldon admitted, looking down.

"I knew it! You – " Leonard's growl of triumph cut off at the other man's raised hand.

"All I admitted to was attraction, Leonard. Any heterosexual male with a pulse would be attracted to her. I never said I was actively courting her affection," explaining the distinction was a risk, but he felt Leonard would understand the difference. "We still need to work on your vocabulary. You keep spewing the same empty vile insults and curses at me when I haven't even raised my voice to you. Which of us is the hateful one?"

The cold, impartial logic set Leonard back on his heels. "Wha- who – what the purple bird fuck?" Leonard finally stammered out.

"You heard what I said," he replied. "I don't need to explain myself any further. Your baseless accusations of some twisted evil plot can be put to rest now, Leonard."

"No, no, no. There's something else going on here. I don't believe anyone could be as hateful as you, especially if you're not actually trying to date her; if you were just messing up my 'meant to be' with Penny, you're the most hateful, sadistic bastard I've ever known," Leonard growled.

"Oh again with the hateful remark," Sheldon sighed as he rolled his eyes. "Let it go, Leonard. I'm not the one shouting empty insults and curses over and over. If anyone's behavior has been hateful, it's yours. I've retained control over both my temper and my tongue. Are we done here?"

"Not by a long shot, _buddy_ ," Leonard retorted, secure in the knowledge that Sheldon wouldn't get the sarcasm practically dripping from his tone. "I'm going to figure this out, and when I do, there's going to be trouble."

He moved to turn and go to his room, but Sheldon's voice arrested his movement. "I wouldn't do that if I were you."

"And why is that?"

Gesturing to his laptop, Sheldon led the way over to the desk. He quickly pulled up the GPS tracking program, displaying to a stunned Leonard his own movements from the week. "If you persist in stalking Penny, I have ample evidence here to turn over to Pasadena's finest," he explained in a voice so cold and serious it surprised even him

"What the fuck is this?" Leonard tried to shout, but in his shock at both seeing the GPS data as well as hearing Sheldon's best Dirty Harry impression it came out as something just above a squeak.

"You now have on your person two GPS tracking chips that regularly transmit data to a secure server. I can now know your precise location with a few clicks of a mouse," Sheldon purposefully withheld the true number of trackers from his roommate, knowing that Leonard would undertake a full scan of his possessions. Leaving the existence of two of the four unacknowledged guaranteed his continued monitoring capability.

If it was possible, Leonard looked even more freaked out than before. "Are you kidding me? What the hell gives you the right to play God here?"

Spinning around to look at the other man, Sheldon pursed his lips before picking up his iPad. A few taps later he was showing a highlighted section of text: "Section 17, paragraph J, subsection I of the Roommate Agreement states that in the event that I become concerned either for your own safety or the safety of our friends from you, I am allowed to – in the common parlance – lo-Jack you so that I know where you are at all times. You both signed and initialed. A couple people mentioned how haggard Penny was and how you seemed to be going to the Cheesecake Factory at least once a day. I put two and two together and activated the GPS protocols in the Roommate Agreement."

"Well I'll be damned," Leonard breathed before staggering over and flopping heavily back onto the couch.

Sensing the energy shift in the room, Sheldon got to his feet and stood in front of his roommate. "No, but if you keep following Penny around without her consent, you will be," he promised in an emotional tone full of subconscious Texan twang.

Looking up, Leonard promised himself that for once in his life he wasn't done fighting over a girl "This isn't over," he promised, summoning what dignity he could muster and looking up into Sheldon's gaze before finally storming off to his room.

With hands that shook from adrenaline bleeding off after the confrontation, Sheldon reached onto a shelf behind his laptop and turned off a camera that had surreptitiously recorded the whole conversation. He stared at the hallway for a long moment, considering his options. After reaching a decision, he pulled out his phone and called a long-unused number. "Hello, Rick? Dr. Sheldon Cooper here. Yes, I'm calling in the favor. How soon can you get to Pasadena?"

* * *


	7. Chapter 7

_Knock. Knock. Knock._ "Bernadette and Howard."

_Knock. Knock. Knock._ "Bernadette and Howard."

_Knock. Knock. Knock._ "Bernadette and Howard."

Sheldon stood outside Bernadette's apartment door, knowing Howard was having dinner with his fiancé. Hopefully his visit was timed for after their meal. He didn't want to burden their time together with his truculent roommate. Bernadette opened the door quickly enough that he knew she'd been waiting for him to complete his ritual.

"Hi, Sheldon. Come on in," she greeted with a smile. Howard had filled her in on the physicist's concerns on Leonard's erratic behavior after the Dinner Incident, so she could guess the approximate reason for his visit.

"Thank you," he said quietly as he entered their apartment.

Noting the visitor, Howard moved out of the kitchen to the living area. "What brings you to our humble abode?"

Sheldon sat down on a chair while his two hosts took either side of a couch. "My fears regarding Leonard's increasingly disturbing behavior have been proven true," he said to Howard.

Bernadette looked confused. "What do you mean?"

Sheldon looked grim. "I pulled up the GPS data from the chips hidden in various items of his and saw that he indeed was following Penny's movements for the entire week."

"That skirt-chasing son of a bitch is STALKING her?" Bernadette exclaimed.

The high-pitched explosion of profanity from the usually calm Bernadette had Sheldon's face twitching in an effort to hide a smile. "That would appear to be the case," he confirmed.

"So what happened?" Howard asked after taking his fiance's hand to calm her down.

"He stormed home after Penny's manager called the police. Apparently the Cheesecake Factory management had also noticed that Leonard was spending a significant amount of time there. He and I had a rather heated conversation about the likelihood of his being 'meant to be' with Penny, after which I informed him of the trackers," Sheldon answered his two friends.

"Aren't you worried about him finding and disabling the chips somehow?" Howard wondered.

"Give me _some_ credit here, Howard. I only told him about half of the ways I have of tracking him," Sheldon scolded after rolling his eyes.

Bernadette looked confused. "Is that even legal?"

"It's in the Roommate Agreement. Leonard is always so impatient. He signs forms without examining them fully, even after Priya picked the last one apart. He even signed a sub-clause that I can lock him up and call a zoo if I suspect he's turning into a werewolf," Sheldon said with an evil grin.

Both Howard and Bernadette burst out laughing. "That's awesome," Howard breathed.

Looking concerned, Bernadette turned to face Sheldon as Howard's phone rang. "What are you going to do?" she asked.

Sheldon watched Howard go into the kitchen to take the call, giving himself and Bernadette a measure of privacy. He turned to regard his…friend. Yes, she was his friend. Bernadette was a recent but welcome addition to their group through her connections to both Howard and Penny. She was intelligent enough to maintain conversation with himself, Raj, and Amy but down to earth enough to talk shoes with Penny. "For once, I'm not sure. After what happened at the last meal we shared as a group, Penny should be less likely to begin another ill-fated relationship with Leonard. As for Leonard himself, he is aware that I know of his movements, so hopefully his actions will be more circumspect, especially in light of his recent conversation with the police. In any event, I'm prepared to cite recent events as enough reason to evict him from the apartment if he continues down this path."

At that moment, Howard rejoined them. "That was Raj. Apparently there's some kind of emergency with one of his comic books and he needs me over there. Are you two going to be okay while I'm gone?"

"Yeah, we'll just hang out and talk about this whole Leonard, Sheldon, and Penny situation," Bernadette said with a smile.

Howard looked uncertain, not wanting to miss out on any vital information, but the look in his fiance's eyes told him she wanted some privacy. He shrugged halfheartedly before giving her a kiss and exchanging nods with Sheldon.

When the door closed behind him, Bernadette sat silently for a moment, watching her friend. Free of twitches and tics, he was apparently very serious about his words. More than his physical calm, the look of quiet certainty in his eyes convinced her. Still, she had to push just a little bit to see if Sheldon was aware of his own motivations. "Do you even know why you're deliberately wrecking a friendship of almost a decade?"

He nodded. "Penny is a creature of light and joy. She deserves to be happier than she was with Leonard."

With a shake of her head, Bernadette kept up her line of questioning. "No way, buster. I'm not buying it. Why do you want Penny to be happy? Give me the real reasons here."

Sheldon heaved a resigned sigh and stared at the tips of his shoes before meeting Bernadette's eyes. "From the day she moved in I've been attracted to her. What man wouldn't? She is ethereal, with beauty that rivals the sunrise, but at the same time she's hard as adamantium, challenging everything I thought about the universe and myself. It's too much to hope that she would be interested in a romantic relationship with someone like me. I'm awkward around other people, I prefer my life to be set in routines, and I love all things related to comic books and superheroes. If all I can do is ensure that she doesn't descend into the pit of unfulfilling drunken sex again, it's worth it."

Bernadette stared at him in wonder. She hadn't been around Sheldon, Leonard, Raj, Howard, and Penny for as long as most of the group, but in that time she'd seen how Sheldon and Penny had interacted. For Sheldon to admit attraction and be willing to sacrifice his oldest friend was a sign of much deeper feelings. _He's probably not even aware how much he loves her,_ she reflected.

"I have one or two ideas that might help, if Leonard continues to be a problem. There are a couple experimental drugs around work that no one would notice a pill or two missing," she said with a mischievous wink.

* * *

After the blowup, things calmed down for a couple weeks. Penny made herself scarce around 2311 North Los Robles. When Sheldon texted to inquire about her well being, she only would say that she was fine, but was spending some time outside Pasadena to avoid Leonard.

Leonard himself was doing an excellent impression of a sloth at a tennis match. He was quiet and reserved, seemingly expending as little energy as possible in moving around, but watching everything. His eyes darted back and forth behind his glasses, watching for some indication that Sheldon's vigilance was slipping. Knowing that his roommate was tracking his movements, he refused to go anywhere that could be remotely interpreted as following Penny. His outings were reserved to the university, the comic book store, and the grocery store.

Over time, his paranoia grew to epic proportions as he constantly looked over his shoulder, imagining Sheldon's presence at all times. He'd spent a frantic evening going through all his possessions, even ripping out the soles of his shoes to find the GPS tracking chips Sheldon mentioned. He'd only mentioned two, and truthfully Leonard had found two in his search, but something about Sheldon left him on edge.

Whether they passed him in the university's hallways or saw him at lunch – despite the growing fractures among the once cohesive group they were loath to completely abandon tradition yet – Howard and Raj took every opportunity to try convincing him to let Penny go, saying that if she didn't want to be with him, it was her choice and he could move on knowing they'd really given it a shot. He tuned them out just as readily as he'd tuned Sheldon out.

Penny was his; she just needed to be reminded of that fact.

* * *

The first Tuesday night after the confrontation with the police, Leonard tried to brazen it out and go with everyone to the Cheesecake Factory, but getting a cold shoulder from not only Sheldon, but Raj, Howard, and Bernadette left him alone and uncomfortable. Amy tried to engage him in conversation on the drive over, but he was so far lost in his own head with thoughts of Penny that it was a futile effort.

Deep in thought and staring at the tips of his shoes as they walked in, Leonard dragged behind everyone. When the hostess saw him approaching, she let everyone else in but closed the door in his face. He tried to pull it open anyway, but the manager was quick to jump up and shake her head. "No way. You're not welcome here anymore after the last time. Get out of here or I'm calling the cops again and this time, I'm pressing charges." He tried to protest, but she remained firm, leaving him to shake his head and walk away.

Everyone present breathed a sigh of relief that the awkwardness of an evening spent in Leonard's company was gone, but when they got to their usual table, another absence made itself known. Penny wasn't there that evening. Just as Sheldon started to get upset at the break in routine and turned to leave, a young woman in a Cheesecake Factory waitress outfit with long, wavy caramel-colored hair and dark green eyes walked up to their table and introduced herself "Hi, my name's Jennifer, and I'll be taking care of you tonight."

"I'm sorry, Jennifer, but it appears we won't be dining here tonight," Sheldon half-rose, but an outstretched hand stopped his progress.

She gave him a warm smile. "Doctor Cooper, right? Please don't leave. Penny told me about her special group of regulars and gave me detailed instructions regarding your order and how it was to be handled. I won't let either of you down, I promise."

Making eye contact, Sheldon saw sincerity and determination in the woman's gaze. To the great astonishment of everyone present, he nodded and sat back down. "That will be satisfactory. I trust Penny's judgment."

Jennifer took everyone's order and left to put them into the system. When she returned with a tray of everyone's drinks, she made a show of giving Sheldon his with exquisite care.

"So where is she?" Raj asked after a sip of his grasshopper. "It's been a while since she's been around."

"All I know for sure is that she's spending time away from her usual haunts in order to give Leonard time to cool down and move on," Sheldon answered.

"Is she still in California?" Amy asked with a noticeable undertone to her voice. While it wasn't unusual for Sheldon and Penny to contact each other, the fact that he was the only person out of the group that her bestie chose to stay in touch with during her absence was something to ponder indeed.

Thinking quickly, Sheldon came up with a reply that would be ambiguous enough to allow him to avoid facial tics that came from dishonesty. "I don't know exactly where Penny has been spending her time, but she is still in in the greater Los Angeles area."

That seemed to placate the group of friends. Everyone returned to their meal, Sheldon pretending obliviousness to Amy's searching glances every so often.

* * *

The next afternoon, Penny met Sarah for a late lunch at a deli in Santa Monica near the beach.

"You're looking better than the last time we met," Sarah commented after they sat down at a table.

Penny nodded around a bite of her turkey sandwich. "Feeling better, too."

Regarding her new friend, Sarah took in the more-rested appearance. Penny's eyes didn't have the bags underneath they once did, nor did she keep looking over her shoulder. "Come to any decisions?"

"Yeah. I'm going to have to make some serious changes," Penny confirmed. "Acting is still my dream, but it's not going anywhere, and as long as I'm a waitress, I'll always be short on funds and long on headaches."

Sarah smiled, but shook her head. "That's great, but I was talking about Stalker Guy versus Tall, Dark, and Geeky. Any progress on that front?"

Penny hoped the blush she could feel wasn't visible, but from the way Sarah's grin widened she knew it was a futile hope. "Well, finding that temp job has let me stay away from Pasadena and Leonard, and my manager at the Cheesecake Factory has been more than understanding. She knows how long I've been there and agrees it's probably time for a change. Working just Tuesday nights has kept my friends from asking too many questions for now."

"What about the rest of your friends?" Sarah asked as she picked at a salad.

"Bernadette is one of my best friends. She'll understand, and where she goes, Howard goes, and thus Raj as well," they shared a chuckle at Penny's explanation, Sarah remembering Penny's description of their odd bro-mance, "and Sheldon has been supportive from the start. That just leaves Leonard – who I'm more than ready to cut loose at this point – and Amy. Amy's the real wild card. She wants Sheldon, but I'm really not sure if she wants Sheldon for himself or if she wants a boyfriend just for the sake of having a guy she can get physical with."

Sarah made a face. "That's kind of sad."

"Yeah. I feel really badly for her, but she just up and decided I was her 'bestie'," Penny even made the air quotes to emphasize her distaste for the moniker, "and it wasn't a mutual decision. I'm not responsible for her anymore. Took me long enough to figure that out though."

"You're avoiding the main question," Sarah pressed. "Sheldon?"

"Boy, you don't let up, do you?" Penny grumped. "Okay, fine. I like him. I've always thought he was cute but ever since this whole mess started, I've been examining it more and for some reason the attraction runs a lot deeper than I thought."

"So what are you going to do about it?" Sarah challenged over the rim of her paper drink cup.

"Nothing," Penny demurred. "He's so far out of my league it's not even funny. Future Nobel Prize winner with a community college dropout? He's going to reach for the stars and I'm stuck here in the dust. With all the craziness in my life, I'd just end up dragging him down with me. I'll stay friends with him – I care about him too much to ever lose track of him completely, but that's all it can ever be. Maybe it's a blessing, you know? Maybe I should spend some time rediscovering myself first before I can have a healthy relationship. Maybe I'll meet someone someday who challenges me like he does. Maybe I'll buy the winning lottery ticket tonight, too."

Sarah decided to take the bull by the horns, so to speak. She put her hand on Penny's forearm, willing her to connect with the gesture. "From what I've learned of you so far, it sounds like you've always been the kind of woman who takes life by the throat and shakes happiness out of it. At least you were until Leonard kind of wrung that out of you. Why don't you get back to that kind of strength and use that to go after Sheldon?"

Taking the final bite of her turkey sandwich on rye with Muenster cheese, Penny just shook her head again. "I told you. I'm not in his league. He's never even had a girlfriend, and I've had way too many boyfriends and one-night mistakes. I would ruin him. Maybe if he's still single when I'm in a better place – if Amy doesn't get her hooks into him any deeper – I might risk it, but he's never shown even the slightest interested in any kind of romantic relationship. Why would he want me?"

Determined to not let Penny sink down into the doldrums of despair, alcohol, and Leonard again, Sarah changed the subject. "Okay, so that's guys. What about work? You want to quit the Cheesecake Factory, right? What happens after that? Is your temp job a possibility for full time?"

"No, it's just a short-term contract," Penny answered. "I don't really know what I would do. I should go back to school, but that costs money. I should get new head shots and work on my acting, but that takes time and money."

Seeing the hopelessness in Penny's eyes, Sarah gave her an encouraging smile. "I think I may have just the answer for you."

* * *

Buoyed by her talk with Sarah, Penny returned to her apartment that evening determined to start revamping her entire life. She called her manager at the Cheesecake Factory and formally gave her two-week notice. Her agent gave her a list of auditions taking place after that time frame along with a new photographer who would do head and glamor shots for free as she built up her portfolio and clientele. Her landlord was barely able to contain his joy that she'd be leaving. Continually behind on her rent, she was one of his least favorite tenants.

The next few calls she needed to make started her hands shaking and stomach sinking. The guys were out. Amy was out – she was most likely biased toward keeping the group's status quo, and Penny had already determined that had to change. She decided to take the easy route and call Bernadette first. "Hi, Penny. I was wondering when you'd call," she heard through her phone's speaker.

Penny looked at her phone in surprise, as if the display would show someone other than Bernadette. "Really?"

"Sheldon just left here. He told us everything. How are you holding up?" Bernadette's voice was full of concern for her friend.

"It's been hard, but I think spending time in Burbank and Santa Monica has been good for me. I realized a lot of things about myself and how I've allowed myself to act with Leonard," Penny admitted.

"So what are you going to do?" Bernadette asked.

"Well, I quit the Cheesecake Factory already," Penny explained as she walked around her apartment's living area. Walking always helped her organize her thoughts while on the phone. "I can't stay there. I'll never escape this vicious cycle of depending on the guys financially and feeling obligated if I do. I don't trust Leonard not to take advantage of that kind of thing anymore."

"Sounds like a good start," the microbiologist affirmed.

_Okay, Penny. Trust her. She's your friend._ "And," she breathed, "I'm moving out of the building."

Glass shattered in the background. "What? You're leaving?" Bernadette exclaimed after cursing the broken glass.

"Not California. Calm down! Just the building. I think I'm going to move to Santa Monica or Burbank. I got an office job, and I need to be closer to save on gas anyway," Penny answered.

"Are you still going to be around here? When are you going to tell everyone?"

"Most of the time no. I can't deal with Leonard anymore. He's stalking me! I was going to call you and Howard first, then Raj, Amy, and Sheldon."

"What if there was a way to make your problems with Leonard go away?" Bernadette wondered far too casually for the question.

Penny was shocked at the amount of mischief in her friend's voice. "Wha – what are you talking about?"

"There are a couple experimental drugs my lab is working on. If Leonard gets to be too much of a problem, we could use one of them to eliminate the difficulty."

"You're not talking about killing him, are you?" Penny wondered at her own sanity that she could ask such a question even close to seriously.

"What? No of course not! I just meant get him back under control so you're not looking over your shoulder all the time," Bernadette clarified.

"Now THAT sounds like a great idea!"

After the two women discussed options and decided on a course of action – should it become necessary – they agreed Penny would tell the entire group at one time during one of their dinners together. A public setting would make it that much harder for Leonard to do anything untoward.


	8. Chapter 8

* * *

**Got a minute, Moon Pie? I need to talk to you.**

Sheldon rolled his eyes. No amount of ever scolding would ever get Penny to stop calling him by MeeMaw's special nickname. He quickly sent a reply.

**I have some time available, yes. What do you require?**

He tried to think of what Penny might need, but came up empty. She seemed to be on the rebound after the stress of Leonard's stalking, but he'd seen her so infrequently it could be his imagination.

The buzz of her next message came almost immediately.

**I need to talk to you about something really important. Can you come to my apartment?**

The similarity between her first message and when he asked for her to come over to the apartment was too striking to ignore. Pursing his lips, Sheldon frowned at the message. She was being deliberately obtuse, not giving him any wiggle room but stoking his curiosity at the same time. He chose not to respond, instead walking past a sullen Leonard – ever watchful of his roommate's behavior now – and out the door, ignoring the plaintive "Want to catch me up, Sheldon?" behind him.

_Knock…knock…knock._ "Penny."

_Knock…knock…knock._ "Penny."

_Knock…knock…knock._ "Penny."

She opened the door within seconds of his ritual. "Hi, Sheldon. I didn't expect you over here this fast."

Momentarily stunned, Sheldon tried to rally. Penny usually looked amazing, but the aqua blue camisole top she had on not only drew attention to her chest, it made her eyes glow. She was a golden-haired vision and it took his breath away. It was only with a conscious effort that he was able to calm his heart and give her his best smile as he entered. "I haven't seen much of you recently, so when you wanted me to visit, I saw no reason to delay."

"I know. Life has been crazy. That's actually what I wanted to talk to you about," Penny said in a rush, her anxiety showing up in the hastened speech.

"Are you ok? Do you need assistance with anything? Are your finances in jeopardy? Do you need a loan for rent? Groceries?" As he sat down in 'his' spot in her apartment, Sheldon tried to search for something he could do to make her life easier among its recent chaos.

She shook her head at his verbal onslaught, trying to find clarity in the confusion. "No, nothing like that. Hey, can I get you anything to drink? Tea? Milk?" Penny asked, delaying her big revelations for just a little bit longer.

"Tea would be fine, thank you. You know how I prefer it prepared," Sheldon confirmed as he wondered what had her so agitated. Rarely was Penny this flustered, stoking his worries about her recent absences.

"Yeah, I do, trust me. I've made it for you often enough." Penny chuckled and put the kettle on the stove. She took a deep breath, knowing the time had come. Penny leaned on her kitchen island for support and looked right at Sheldon. "I'm quitting the Cheesecake Factory and moving," she blurted, ripping the band aid off all at once.

"You're what?" Rarely did Sheldon ask for clarification to something he'd heard; Vulcan hearing and an eidetic memory usually made it a moot point, but this time was an exception.

"I'm quitting and moving. I have a new job. It's got higher pay and more stability, but it's not in Pasadena; it's in Santa Monica. With Leonard right across the hall…it just makes me feel much safer to move. I'm telling you now in person because I know it will cause a lot of upheaval to your routine and I wanted to talk with you to ease your concerns," she explained.

He couldn't seem to blink, much less make his eyes go back to normal size. "What…why…where…oh I have so many questions!" he exclaimed. "What will happen to my Tuesday barbeque bacon cheeseburger with barbeque sauce, bacon, and cheese on the side? Who will serve me now?"

"I'll train my replacement specifically to handle your meal, Sheldon. I've gotten it down over the years, so I know how to instruct her. Pam, my manager, loves regular customers, so she won't let the new girl skimp on anything."

"Why are you leaving?" The look on her face was confounding. She was leaving, but every part of her expression and posture – despite not understanding most social cues, he'd learned hers over the years – screamed of reluctance.

"I can't stay around here with Leonard, sweetie. I've been looking over my shoulder, waiting for him to appear, and it's driving me crazy. I need to make a change. I'll still keep in touch with everyone but him, but I can't let him stalk me anymore. Even if I filed charges and got a restraining order I'd have to move. Your apartment is already less than fifty feet from mine, you know?"

He wanted to protest. He wanted to scream with every fiber of his being that she needed to stay, that he needed her in his life for more than just his damned routines. Sheldon wanted so badly to reach out and embrace her that he had to force his arms not to twitch. Opening his mouth to protest her leaving, her expression arrested him. Penny's eyes, still with the heavy bags under them from the stress of looking over her shoulder combined with lack of sleep, shone with pleading. In that moment everything crystallized for him. She needed to leave. She needed to spread her wings and get away from Leonard's cloying presence.

"Is there nothing I could do? Kick Leonard out of the apartment?" He asked, trying one last idea to keep her around.

"Could you really do that?" For the first time, hope appeared in her eyes.

"Absolutely. Part of the roommate agreement is that the apartment is in my name and he pays rent to me," Sheldon explained.

Just as quickly as it appeared, the light was gone. Penny shook her head. "As long as he's here, I know you'll know where he is. I trust you to have my back, Sheldor, even when I'm not here."

She was serious. She was leaving. Nothing he could say or do would change her mind. Sheldon nodded, accepting the inevitable. "Do you need any help?"

"No, my new job is going to move everything. I know it's a disruption, but it's got to be this way for now. I have to do this for my own sanity, sweetie. This is the only way to take control of my life," Penny told him as gently as she could. She hesitated but decided to go ahead and ask anyway. "Sheldon, there is one thing I wanted to ask you before everything changes."

"Ask me anything," he answered with all possible sincerity.

"What really happened in the Arctic?"

He leaned back on the sofa, using the break to organize his thoughts. "We set out to conduct experiments that, if successful, would have been the first proofs of String Theory as it's commonly known. Essentially we could have revolutionized science's understanding of the fundamental workings of the entire universe. To do that, we needed to take strict data readings at set intervals under very specific conditions. After a few months of dealing with my craziness, kookiness, and other terms I won't repeat in your presence, they apparently lost patience and started activating an electric can opener, which ran on just the right frequency to interfere with the data collection," he paused to take a breath.

Penny pursed her lips, knowing the worst was somehow yet to come.

"Leonard pulled a juvenile prank and then called it 'no big deal' because he couldn't stand my routines and strict adherence to established scientific method in order to find the best results. The subsequent embarrassment I caused by my premature email declaration of success – which I take full responsibility for; I didn't have to send the email, but my excitement got the best of me – resulted in every piece of work I've ever published being re-checked for accuracy along with every paper afterward. My credibility, my very identity as one of the foremost physicists in the entire world took an almost-irreparable hit. Only diligence in documenting every step I've taken has convinced the scientific community that it was a one-time aberration."

As he got through his speech, Penny felt warring feelings of sympathy and anger building in her. Leonard knew what he was getting into when he agreed to go with Sheldon, and he still pulled that prank that hurt his at least nominal best friend. Sheldon invited his friends to go with him to share in his success and they betrayed him in one of the worst possible ways. Instead of just making fun of him behind his back like always, they set out to make him a laughingstock, Leonard leading the charge. "Oh sweetie, I had no idea. I'm so sorry," she tried to offer sympathy. Her anger at Leonard was building by the moment, but it was already so intense from his stalking that she could only set it aside for later consideration. After talking to Bernadette, a plan was forming in her head for how to deal with him.

He waved her off. "Don't worry about it, Penny."

"It's a big deal to me, though. I just ignored it and started dating the little troll. I'm absolutely disgusted with myself for that," Penny intertwined her fingers in her lap, physically twisting them together as she twisted to explain her anguish.

To get her mind off that, he changed the subject slightly. "It can't be easy for you to learn this about someone you used to care about. Do you know he wanted you from the first day?"

Shrugging off the Arctic talk, she nodded. "Yeah, I mean I know he was attracted to me. That's why he asked me to lunch, right?"

Sheldon gave her one of his breathy snorts. "Attracted? Penny before you came back over for lunch he said 'our babies will be smart and beautiful'."

Penny's stomach convulsed in disgust. "Ugh! He actually said that?"

He nodded. "Yes. His every action since then has been with the singular goal of getting you into bed, or when you were with someone else, getting anyone else into bed."

She groaned, knowing the truth but still finding it embarrassing to acknowledge. "I can't believe I ever started dating that creep!"

"There, there," he consoled, wrapping an arm around her shoulder and patting her back. "At least you got out of it before too much damage had been done."

She sniffed her agreement but snuggled into him. After a few moments enjoying the closeness, she said something so softly he almost didn't hear it. "Somehow you've become my best friend. I don't know how, but I'm really glad it happened."

"As I understand the term, you've become my best friend too, Penny," he agreed, smiling into her golden hair.

He felt her smile against his chest, but chose to remain silent, reveling in the feeling of being this close with a woman. Such an unusual feeling, it was warm and exciting, not terrifying as he'd always imagined. There was certainly none of the unease bordering on dread he felt when cuddling with Amy after the bridesmaid dress fiasco.

Penny was soft, warm, and…there was no other way to describe it: holding her felt like being home. It felt like he was whole when he never knew a piece was missing. Letting Penny go was going to be heartbreaking, but it had to be done. As intelligent as he was, as imaginative as his mind could be in figuring out the solution of a complex equation, he could envision no scenario in which Penny returned his feelings.

It took all his strength not to look down her camisole shirt to see her abundant cleavage, but the hero always peeks, so he contented himself with a quick glance. The view got his heart racing and blood pumping. Sheldon swallowed deeply and forced himself to count to ten to dispel the urge to wake her up and start kissing her like there was no tomorrow.

They stayed cuddled up like that, with Penny curled up under his arm, until her breathing evened out and he knew she was asleep. As softly and quietly as he could, Sheldon stood up and replaced his body with the pillow he'd been leaning on, hoping that his heat and personal scent would suffice to help her stay asleep. He then covered her with a blanket, pressed a kiss to her forehead, and made his way quietly out of her apartment.

He had a phone call to make.

* * *

Seeing his roommate come back into their apartment hours after he'd left drove Leonard crazy, but he refused to believe anything could have happened. Occam's Razor just didn't apply here; there was no way at all that he could believe Sheldon and Penny were having sex. There might be an infinite number of parallel universes, but in none of them were Sheldon and Penny a romantic item.

As far as he could tell, not a hair was out of place, though his clothes were rumpled and wrinkled as if… _No, it can't be that,_ he mused, _Amy's been ready and willing and he hasn't even made so much as the first move toward her. He can't be sleeping with Penny already! She's a sexpot but even she doesn't move that fast, and he'd run screaming for his Purell before he'd let her touch him._

He waited until Sheldon went back into his room and finished his nightly routine before gathering up his courage to go confront Penny once and for all. Slipping as silently as possible out of the apartment, he opened Penny's door and entered just as softly. She was sleeping on the couch with a blanket covering up to her neck. Her hair was mussed and she was lightly whimpering in her sleep.

Gorgeous as ever, his heart broke at the thought that her beauty might be firmly off-limits to him. Her efforts to avoid his presence indicated that she seemed intent on continuing their relationship, even as a beta test. It was one of his more inspired ideas – rather than put all the work into avoiding her tripwires he would allow her to tell him in advance what pissed her off so that he could focus on doing things more likely to end in the bedroom.

What she saw in Sheldon that she didn't see in him was baffling, but it was just one more instance where the taller guy got the girl in a long line of losses stretching back to high school and beyond. He was always overshadowed by taller, better-looking, more athletic guys. With Sheldon, he thought he'd have the advantage of being more normal, but losing Penny to him was going to hurt. Jealousy was an old, familiar emotion, as ugly as it was. He tried to shake off the green-eyed monster, but it was in full force.

Leonard was just headed for the door when he heard her murmur in her sleep. It was unclear at first, so he turned back and saw as she started shifting around. The blanket slipped down and he saw her legs squeeze together in arousal. Stepping closer, he heard more clearly the second time she said, "Oh Sheldon, don't stop," in the breathy voice he'd heard so often during sex.

His heart broke at the lust in her tone. _They ARE sleeping together! I have to do something before I lose her for good. Maybe Amy would have an idea for how to get Sheldon away from her._

It took all his strength not to slam the door behind him. This fight wasn't over. Penny belonged to him. He'd called dibs, after all. She was his. He still had tools. He still had an ally. He had to get in touch with Amy. Not only was she a very interested party in this little drama, she was almost as smart as he was; together their prodigious intelligences had to be able to figure out some solution to the mess.

* * *

Penny woke suddenly, flushed and panting. Unsure of where she was, it took her a moment to realize she'd fallen asleep on Sheldon on her couch, but her lanky neighbor was nowhere to be seen. _Sheldon_. Just thinking his name brought back the dream that woke her. Tingles spread over her entire body, concentrating especially in her breasts and at the apex of her thighs. She'd had sex dreams before, but never one that made her orgasm. She'd had sex dreams before, but this was the first one involving Sheldon. Just thinking his name made sweaty images from her dream flash through her mind again and started her body on fire.

She tried distracting herself by straightening up ( _cleaning the apartment to Sheldon's standards_ a voice inside her mind mocked), but catching a whiff of his personal scent on her pillows got her blood racing again. Giving in to the temptation, Penny abandoned her cleaning and not quite ran to her bedroom. She slowly removed her clothing, letting her fingers skim all over her body. For that brief moment, she allowed herself to pretend they were the long and slender fingers of a certain Texan. She lay back on her bed and sighed, remembering her dream and letting her fingers trail downward, eventually sending her body over the edge again and again.

She was in really big trouble.


	9. Chapter 9

The next day was Saturday. Radio silence from both Sheldon and Penny was driving Leonard up the wall. Something was going on between the two of them, but he had no clue what it was. Since Penny had gone to extreme measures to avoid him and Sheldon had begun giving the cold shoulder, there was only one avenue left available to him. It was something he always swore he'd never do, but he could feel his chances with Penny slipping away, and he'd be damned if he'd give her up to Sheldon without exhausting every possible outcome. When he'd called Amy to share his concerns, he'd voiced the thought that he might have to go to some pretty extreme lengths to keep Penny. Somewhat unsurprisingly, she was entirely on his side, saying that all was fair in love and war, and he was in both. Amy was already plotting what she had to do to keep her man from the golden temptress, as she'd called Penny.

Leonard waited until Sheldon was down for his usual laundry routine, knowing that Penny would be joining him. Somehow it had become their ritual, which was disturbing enough without the fact that he'd never noticed it before. Hearing the steps fade down the stairs, he knew he only had moments to do what was needed. Opening a cabinet Sheldon never used because it was his own, Leonard took out some equipment he'd 'borrowed' from Wolowitz in his creepier days.

Moving fast, he slipped across the hall and entered Penny's apartment, knowing she never locked her door when she was just doing laundry. He had to move fast. Looking around, Leonard started placing tiny cameras in various strategic spots around her apartment. Behind her cable box, next to her computer, and on a shelf in her bedroom would give him at least audio of her whole apartment so he could figure out what the hell was going on between his girl and his roommate.

He left her apartment just in time, hearing their voices and steps coming up the stairs as he closed his apartment behind him. A few minutes later he had the camera's feeds calibrated and active on his laptop.

* * *

The next afternoon Penny steeled herself to meet Amy for lunch. It wasn't a conversation she was looking forward to, but if bridges weren't going to be burned with her self-appointed 'bestie', she couldn't do it via text or even a phone call. It had to be done in person.

She met Amy at a sandwich place near the Cheesecake Factory. The neurologist was in her usual frumpy skirt and cardigan, but there was certainly something to be said for being comfortable in someone's own skin. Amy definitely didn't care what anyone thought of her clothes, a trait Penny often envied.

"Penny, you're looking as radiant as ever. Your golden locks and smooth, supple figure could charm a priest into giving up the Church," Amy complimented when she sat down across the table.

As the brunette scanned her menu, Penny managed to stifle her discomfort. It was sometimes hard to tell if Amy had a simple girl crush on the first person to tolerate her presence since school – if her tales of solitary woe were to be believed – or if she had an actual physical attraction to her. It wouldn't have bothered Penny either way, but the ambiguity was disconcerting. Something she'd learned from her mistakes with Leonard: Penny liked to know where she stood. "Hi, Amy! What's new?" she answered with too much false enthusiasm. Anyone but Amy would have sensed her sarcasm.

"Well, I had to go shopping for tampons and condoms last night, but other than that I just need to find time to talk with Sheldon. He called me last night and left a voice mail, but only said that he needed to talk to me about a very serious matter. I can only imagine that I've finally worn him down and he's ready to take our relationship to the next level, hence the need for condoms," Amy declared, a smug pride suffusing her very being.

Penny had to force her jaw not to hit the table. She never thought Amy and Sheldon were that close, despite their recently-upgraded relationship after the Stuart fiasco. If Amy was right about Sheldon's intentions...it just made her decision all the easier. She had to get out while there was still a chance to find what was left of the Penny Collins who left Nebraska. Shaken out of her thoughts, Penny noticed that Amy must have started talking again.

"...Anyway, why did you ask to meet for lunch? Normally you're busy and I have lunch in my laboratory," Amy wondered before nodding to the waitress.

"Well, I've got some news and I wanted to tell you in person," Penny explained. After they placed their lunch orders, she folded her fingers between each other and leaned on her elbows. Amy looked at her with undisguised awe, which was more than a little uncomfortable, but after so many months, Penny just ignored it.

"Really? Have you decided to join my karaoke duet and tour the professional karaoke circuit, staying in cheap motels on various tour stops, just like I've been dreaming?" Amy asked.

"Erm, no. I'm just making some major changes to my own life," Penny took a deep breath before plunging into her explanation, "I've decided to leave the Cheesecake Factory, and I'm moving out of the apartment building."

The shock on Amy's face was plain. "You're…you're what?" she asked when she was able to form the words. Leonard said Penny was distant, but he didn't even hint that she might be leaving their building.

"I decided to make some necessary changes," Penny repeated.

"Are you kidding? What's going to happen to the group? What about Leonard? What about me? Who are we going to look to for the coolness factor?" Amy rattled through her pleas, desperate to find the right combination of words to make Penny change her mind.

"The group will still be there, but I wouldn't be able to continue to hang out anyway, not with the way Leonard's been acting recently," Penny said.

"I know you two are in a bit of a rough spot, but really, do you think you need to just leave everyone?" Amy was determined to do what she could to maintain the status quo.

"Leonard has been _stalking_ me, Amy!" Penny had to get Amy to understand the depth of her need for space.

"I'm sure it hasn't been quite that bad. Have you tried talking to him, maybe put on some makeup and that killer little low-cut sundress?" Amy gave what she must have thought was a salacious wink but looked more like a facial tic.

"What? No, Amy, listen: I'm serious. He's been following me around when I told him not to, showing up places he could only know I'd be at if he was stalking me. I'm seriously freaked out about this, and there's no way I can keep having dinner or going out with everyone as long as he's there," There was no way to explain other than just baldly stating the facts, Penny decided.

"Yes, Leonard called me last night and told me that you would most likely overreact and take his actions the wrong way. I think in the right light he's actually being very romantic. You're making a big mistake, bestie, throwing away a relationship with someone willing to go to so much trouble to make you happy. I had such hopes for double-dates with you and Leonard with Sheldon and me. Once I guide him past puberty that is," Amy took a drink of her water, using the opportunity to look down her nose at Penny.

Penny gaped at her friend, betrayal flooding her system with dismay as she realized her self-appointed best friend was apparently trying to keep her in an emotionally abusive relationship. For the moment she ignored the way her insides twisted at the thought of Amy and Sheldon together. "Why in the world am I making a mistake to try to get away from a stalker? When we had our girl's night at my apartment you didn't seem so dead set on keeping me together with Leonard."

"Well, I've done some thinking in the interim. You left Kurt – a good decision, by the way – and moved through a procession of one-time dates and short-term relationships except for Leonard. Were any of those men well-respected scientists? Were any of those men loyal and devoted? Your track record suggests you won't find anyone better than he. If you stay with Leonard our circle will remain cohesive, with everyone paired off except for Rajesh - who, let's be honest, is probably looking in the wrong direction," Amy deadpanned.

"You – you honestly think I should be romantically involved with someone who follows me into grocery stores and banks, trying to get me in a situation where I can't avoid him, just to keep the group of friends together? You want me to be miserable so that you can say you have a group of friends that are all couples?" Her desire to remain calm long forgotten, Penny's disbelief was plain.

"Exactly! Status quo and nothing has to change," Amy's smile was so disturbing Penny couldn't remain in place any longer.

"You really think everything's all about you, don't you? I should have known when you bullied Bernadette into making her wedding all about you with that Maid of Honor nonsense. I'm sorry, Amy. I'm not letting anyone bully me into remaining in an abusive relationship anymore," Penny declared as she stood up and threw her napkin down on the table.

"You'll regret that choice," Amy said calmly. "Starting over won't get you anywhere."

"That's my decision to make, Amy, and here's another one: you can stop telling everyone you're my bestie. A true best friend wouldn't want me to be miserable just to keep her own damn status quo."

With that last retort, Penny stormed out of the restaurant.

* * *

The next day saw Penny sending Sheldon a text message. She wanted to take advantage of every chance she had to see him before she moved out of the building, so her idea for that evening was to invite him out to a new pub she'd discovered in Santa Monica.

Irish pubs always called to her – her heritage demanded they would – but this one in particular felt like home. The dark wood booths contrasted with a creamy finish on the interior walls, which were decorated with various signs and mirrors advertising brands like Jameson, Powers, Guinness, Harp, and Murphy's. The music on the player was a uniformly excellent blend of traditional tunes and modern Celtic rock groups, and they even had live music every weekend. She thought it would be a great opportunity to show him something important to her while maintaining their friendship. If that's all she was ever going to get, she'd take it.

Picking up her phone to send the invitation, she saw an unfamiliar blinking red light from her entertainment center. When she looked closer at it, she saw immediately what it was. It took everything she had, but Penny did keep the shriek inside. Now that Howard was engaged, there could only be one person who would put spy cameras in her apartment.

The camera was the last straw. God knew how many more there were in her place, what they'd seen, and how long they'd been there. Stalking was one thing, but having her life recorded without her knowledge left her feeling violated in a way she'd never felt before, even with Kurt's emotional abuse. Staring at the camera, she was faced with a choice. On the one hand she could either knuckle under and agree to re-start the relationship with Leonard; on the other side was her memory of Sarah telling her how much she stood to gain by leaving Leonard and everything holding her back at 2311 North Los Robles behind.

It was time to bring a swift end to this disaster.

Torn between storming over to the other apartment, she schooled her features to keep her feelings hidden. Not for the first time did she bless her acting abilities. Instead of texting Sheldon, she sent a quick message to Bernadette.

**Plan A is a go, but just the 4 of us. **Bring the package to CF.** Tell Howard and Raj to get what they need. Operation Troll starts six hours after the exchange.  
**

Bernadette's reply was almost instantaneous.

**Understood. We're all with you. Good luck!**

* * *

After getting back from the Cheesecake Factory with a small white enveloped tucked securely in her front pocket, Penny decided it was now or never. She changed into a sexy corset-style top and a skin-tight pair of jeans that she'd always known drew Leonard's eyes to her ass like moths to a flame. Distraction was key here. If she could keep his blood flowing south, his brain filter wouldn't work. She knew that after all the dumbass things he'd blurted in bed, like comparing them having sex to each other trying to achieve some sort of cosmic relationship rebalancing with their respective parents.

Trap baited, she pulled out her phone and called him.

"Hi, Leonard," she started, allowing her uncertainty to color her voice as she set the stage in her apartment.

"Penny," his tone was guarded but hopeful, "I wasn't sure I was ever going to hear from you again," he said with the underlying accusation barely hidden.

"I know, things have been crazy. I've been working on lining up work, talking to my agent about auditions, things like that. But now that's done for the moment, so I was hoping we could get together," Penny said as she walked around, setting up candles all around the living area.

"Really? You want to get together?" Leonard asked excitedly, making Penny roll her eyes at his sudden enthusiasm.

"Yeah, why don't you come on over? I've got everything ready to go." She counted a beat in her head. Barely five seconds had passed when she heard the other door slam and hers open. Looking down at her phone, she laughed. He hadn't even bothered to hang up.

"Hi – hi, Penny," he said breathlessly, reaching for his inhaler.

"Leonard. Why don't you come in?" she asked, knowing he wouldn't get the sarcasm.

He didn't. Leonard's brow furrowed in confusion. "I just did. What are you talking about?"

"Never mind. Let me get you something to drink," Penny offered before getting him a beer. "I have some big news, and I wanted to tell you in person."

"What's going on?" He asked, eyes glued to either her chest or butt, depending on which way she was facing.

"Well, I'm quitting the Cheesecake Factory," she said confidently.

"You're WHAT?!" he shouted. "What would possess you to do something that crazy?"

"It's not crazy! I realized I wanted to focus on my acting career. If I'm going to take one last good shot at this I need to get new head shots, take acting classes, and go to as many auditions as possible. Why do you think that's crazy? Don't you think I should be an actress?" she breathed hard, not realizing how much pent-up angst she was pouring into this one last shot she was giving him. He'd never been the most supportive, at times acting downright jealous when a scene called for her to act romantically with another man, but the depth of his opposition to her acting career was still shocking.

"I just think…" he rubbed his face with his hands before looking above her neck for the first time since he came in, "look, you know how I feel about you. I've proposed. I want to get married someday. I think we belong together, and with my salary, you wouldn't need to work at the Cheesecake Factory or try to get an acting job. You've been out here a long time and all you've gotten so far is that gross commercial. Maybe you're just not cut out to be an actress."

Her eyes bulged. "So what, I'd just stay home and take care of the house while you're at work, then have dinner on the table when you get home?"

"And look after the kids too," he added quickly before realizing his mistake.

Penny could almost hear the last nail being hammered into Leonard's coffin. She plastered on a sickly sweet smile and let him dig his grave as deep as he wanted. "Sheldon said something once, offhandedly, about a comment you made right after we met, something about you believing our babies would be smart and beautiful?"

Fear filled his eyes before he saw her smile and in his hubris, interpreted her actions as welcoming the idea. "Yeah, you're beautiful, I'm smart; I just always thought we'd be able to have amazing kids."

She had to close her eyes and bite her lip to keep from shooting back at him for indirectly calling her dumb."So what would we do with our spare time? I mean it's not like we have a lot of things in common. You don't care for any of my friends, and I don't get into the same things you do, like with your movies and comic books. I mean, what about all those romantic comedies you went to see with me in the theater?"

"Yeah, I pretty much went along with just about anything so long as it resulted in sex," he admitted.

Her heart sank at how shallow she'd been, going along with everything he'd done just out of a misplaced desire to not be lonely. "So what happens when we're not in bed?" She asked softly.

Riding his high, Leonard forgot to filter his speech and let his mouth run free. "Well, I've always thought that if you just read more, maybe we'd have more interesting things to talk about. Maybe I could loan you some of my books so you could read those instead of your trashy magazines?"

It took every ounce of her strength to keep her hands from wrapping around his throat. As it was they were twitching so much she was surprised he didn't think she was having a seizure. It was all true. Leonard never wanted to be with her for who she was; he'd only wanted to nail the dumb blonde across the hall. _Time to put it into motion_ , she told herself. "You know what? I think you might be right. Ten years is too long to keep trying at a dream."

"Yeah!" he grinned as he drained the last of his beer, not seeing the trap for what it was. "You can give all that up and not have to worry about money anymore. I'll take care of you."

Penny stood quickly, not trusting her self-control any further in the face of such hideous chauvinistic condescension. "Let me get us a couple more of these and we'll celebrate our new arrangement."

"Sounds good to me, babe. I'm so glad you finally see things my way," he said, putting his feet on her coffee table with a thump.

Keeping her body in between him and the fridge, she popped the top off two more bottles and slipped her hand into her pocket. She tore the paper quickly and extracted the quick-dissolving pill. Penny looked over her shoulder to confirm his attention wasn't on her before dropping the pill into his new bottle.

She walked over to him and handed over the drink, lifting her own in a toast. "Here's to us: a failed actress and successful scientist." They clinked their bottles together before taking a long pull. His competitive side came out when he saw that she was drinking faster than he, and Leonard worked to chug the entire bottle, just as Penny had planned.

"So tell me, Leonard: how does it feel to be an up-and-coming physicist who almost helped prove string theory?"

Confusion colored his face. "What?"

"You heard me. I was so hopeful that your Arctic trip would be the thing you all needed to become rock stars, at least in the science world," she said, her voice growing colder with each word, "but then you had to go fuck it up, didn't you? Consider this a revenge for what you did to my best friend."

He didn't have time to ask any more questions before his eyes rolled back into his head and he fell to the floor, his face hitting the edge of the coffee table on the way down. Penny's bark of laughter at the crunch his nose made when it broke caused a momentary pang of guilt, but she shook it off as she remembered all Leonard had done and intended to do to her.

"Ouch," she winced without sympathy, "That's gonna leave a mark."

With a humorless chuckle, she pulled out her phone and called Bernadette. "Hey, Bernie, it's me…Yeah the rat bastard never suspected a thing…Yup, out like a light…No, no other side effects; he's out cold on my floor, snoring like a gutted hog…Is that all you needed for your study?...Good…I wouldn't want you to get in trouble for this either…It was genius to list him as one of the blind testers of the new sleeping aid to hide you sneaking the drug out of the lab…That's right…get the guys over here and we'll get set up for the final act of this little drama…No, Sheldon's hands need to stay clean of this…just Raj and Howard for the last part…and some of my new friends, that's right…okay, I'll see you later, Bernadette."

She looked down on Leonard with nothing but contempt. "Serves you right, you selfish prick," she growled with a savage kick to his midsection.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This one is the money chapter, folks. It's a common trope in Big Bang Theory fanfiction to have Penny threaten to 'go Junior Rodeo' on someone or to say that it's 'Junior Rodeo on', but to my knowledge (and apologies if someone else wrote it and I just never stumbled across it), no one has ever written Penny actually going Junior Rodeo on someone. 
> 
> Well, the wait is over. 
> 
> Presented for your consideration: Penny literally going Junior Rodeo.

* * *

 

Warmth.

As Leonard swam through the haze of unconsciousness the very first sensation his brain was able to discern was warmth. A warm, pulsing body pressed heavily against his. _Penny?_ _Wow, what the hell did we do last night? And how many times did we do it? I'm a stud,_ his drug-impaired brain thought.

Waking up this disoriented but lying next to Penny meant the night before had probably been epic. He tried to reach out to scoot closer to her – she was always averse to cuddling after sex, and especially in the morning, but his hazy memory of the night before still distinctly recalled her decision to leave acting behind and become his housewife – taking advantage of the situation, but something impeded his progress. His fingers refused to obey his mind's commands. On further investigation, Leonard discovered something was covering them. Fabric of some kind seemed to be encasing his entire body except his face.

Before he could force his eyes open and figure out what the hell was going on, a warm, wet tongue slathered one entire side of his face. His still-foggy mind registered both surprise at Penny's forwardness and no small amount of pride that he'd managed to satisfy her so thoroughly the night before that she wanted more the morning after, something she usually avoided. _King of Foreplay, indeed,_ he thought.

The body next to him grunted. _That's odd. Normally her morning grunts aren't that deep_. Finally able to open his eyes, they quickly went as wide as they could possibly go when he saw large, dark eyes, round ears that swiveled back and forth, and a circular, wet nose in front of his face. When Leonard finally registered that the body he attempted to spoon, which then turned and licked his face before grunting in disgust, was a cow, the shriek he let out started the creature so badly it rumbled again and quickly trotted away from him.

Looking around, Leonard saw that he was lying on loose dirt in a corrugated metal pen. Three sides were enclosed in metal pipe fencing. Directly behind him was a gate of some kind, but it appeared to be securely fastened. Confusion filled him. The last thing he remembered from the night before was having a beer with Penny, celebrating her decision to abandon her career and take care of his house and (future) children. Now he had awakened in a small pen with a cow. Looking down at himself, he saw that rather than the usual purple hoodie he wore almost everywhere, someone had taken the time to dress him in a full-length pig costume. The cloth he felt on his hands was designed to appear as hooves, by the entire thing was essentially an overgrown children's onesie, complete with a zipper up the middle.

"What the fu…" He never finished the thought.

A loud bell, much like at a school, sounded and the gate behind him swung open. He saw the cow start to run at him and in his fear he turned to run the only direction he could escape. Out the open door he ran into an oval-shaped arena. The stands were darkened except for a few figures too dimly illuminated for his hazy mind to identify.

Turning back, Leonard saw the bovine running straight out of the pen behind him, so he did the only thing his panicked mind told him would result in getting away: he veered off to one side. Too late, he saw that he picked the wrong side. Thunder rumbled in the distance behind him. As he turned to see what fresh hell was approaching, his mind irrelevantly informed him that the shock on his face meant that he looked like any generic movie character who sees their doom and comically expresses their fear.

It wasn't that he'd never seen horses before. As a child, he'd gone to a few birthday parties at petting zoos when his mother could be bothered to allow him to indulge in 'silly, superficial expressions of cultural celebration'. He knew horses were large animals, big enough to carry a human around, even, but he'd only seen them from the slightly elevated position of grandstands and bleachers. He'd always been too scared to approach them and see the animals at ground level.

The sight before him was terrifying enough to drive the last remnants of whatever drugs he'd ingested from his system. Despite his sudden sobriety, the black horse bearing down on him looked like it was snorting fire, like one of the mythological horses of Diomedes, the blonde rider on top looking for all the world like a Valkyrie, charging for his very soul. Her terrible war cry struck fear to his very marrow, so terrible and awful it was to hear.

Leonard turned to run, but in his haste and unfamiliarity with his costume, he tripped over the fabric hooves and fell to the dirt. The pounding of the horse's hooves were getting ever closer, so he put all his energy into escaping as fast as possible. Getting back to his feet would have taken too much time, so he started running away on all fours. With the horse directly behind him, he turned and ran to one side again, feeling a rush of satisfaction when the hoof beats went on past before stopping as the rider turned around. Still not taking the time to get to his feet, he kept running for what looked like an open part of the arena wall. Freedom lay beyond. The Valkyrie was riding harder than ever straight for him, and he put everything he had into his escape.

It didn't last very long. Within seconds, a rope materialized around his midsection and tightened, arresting his movement and dropping him to the dirt. When he struggled and fought to get to his feet, a disturbingly familiar lavender scent assaulted his nostrils as a weight landed on him, pushing his face to one side into the dirt and obscuring his vision. His mystery assaulter looped the rest of the rope around his legs and hands, effectively trussing him up like a turkey before getting off of him.

"Time?" A similarly familiar female voice shouted.

From somewhere above him, another voice came over a public address system. "6.5 seconds. Congratulations!"

Leonard shook his head free of the dirt and put the voice, the scent, and the gorgeous, jeans-encased derriere in front of him together and realized that Penny was the mysterious rider who had just hog-tied him. He tried to gulp down air to get his breath back, but the exertion left him only able to wheeze. "Wheee! Wheee! Wheee!" he breathed, trying to catch his wind.

"Aww," came a voice from behind him, "He even squeals like a pig!"

"Usually you're faster than that, at least on the film I was able to find of your Junior Rodeo days ," Leonard heard an unfamiliar voice challenge.

"I always was on the calves," Penny answered, "They always run straight. It's the damned pigs you have to watch out for. They'll swerve when you least expect it."

Applause rained down from all sides. Leonard rolled onto his back and looked around. All of his friends were around him in the first row of the bleachers. To his horror, Bernadette was doubled over with laughter, Raj had silent tears rolling down his face, and Howard could barely stand straight, they were laughing so hard. In front of Howard was a giant television camera on a tripod with cords going off somewhere behind the grandstands. A group of unfamiliar people sat on the other side of the arena with a microphone in front of one of them.

Penny turned around to face him with a triumphant smirk on her face. In addition to the jeans, she wore a denim long-sleeved shirt, complete with white trim on the seams and pockets. A black cowboy hat sat slightly askew on her head, knocked that way in the chase, most likely. She even had on black leather boots, complete with spurs. She had never looked more terrible or beautiful.

"What the fuck did you do to me?" he shouted, struggling futilely against the rope.

"Just a juvenile prank," she drawled, her grin widening, "No big deal, right?"

Those words which he had once uttered when he had similarly humiliated a colleague he used to call his best friend, started a cold ball of dread forming in his gut. Before he could respond, everyone in the darkened stands hopped down and started walking across the dirt toward his position. "Nice job, Penny!" Bernadette enthused, "But wouldn't it have been more authentic to put him in a cow costume?"

"Yeah, probably, but when I went to my usual place, they said they didn't make cow or even calf costumes in a size small enough to fit him, so I had to go with a pig. It ended up working out pretty appropriately, didn't it?" She laughed.

"Could not agree more, m'lady," Howard answered with an overdone, but still charming bow. Penny had to give it to him; ever since Bernadette, he was a changed man. The leers were still there occasionally, as were the crude remarks, but he really had worked to change his behavior since his engagement.

"You're fucking crazy! You could have killed me!" It was useless to fight the knots, Leonard discovered as he snarled at Penny. It was humiliating having to lie in the dirt at everyone's feet, but until someone freed him, he was there at their mercies.

"Please. I never even killed a cow when I was doing Junior Rodeo in Nebraska," she retorted with derisive snort. "You were never in any danger. Now, we have a few things to discuss."

"I'm not discussing anything with you until you untie me, you psychotic bitch!" he tried to show some bravado to bully her into releasing him. He only succeeded in rolling onto one side.

In a blonde flash, Penny was kneeling next to him, but instead of freeing him, there was a metallic flash and suddenly a wicked-looking blade was pressed to his groin. "If this was a real rodeo, you'd be a gelding already. I don't appreciate the curses and insults from a deranged stalker. If you want to keep your ability to add to the Hofstadter genetic line, I'd suggest putting an end to the insults. Got me?" Seeing his acquiescence manifested in how his struggling stopped, she continued. "Here's the deal: I should turn you in to the police for stalking and harassment. I should. Hell, I even found your cameras," as Leonard started shaking his head she interrupted him, "Howard here was kind enough to trace the signals to your laptop, so don't bother denying it. Anyway, as I was saying before I was interrupted, between this latest incident, your screwing with Sheldon's experiment, and the whole Joyce Kim episode, there's more than enough that the circle of us could put together to get you in a butt-load of trouble, do you understand me?"

Eyes wide with fear and too petrified to move, Leonard just nodded as softly as possible.

"Good. Now, you have two choices: you can either stay here on your own and find a new apartment, since I don't think Sheldon wants you in his anymore and no one here wants to see your face ever again, trying to brazen out the storm of your behavior, knowing all the while that one wrong look, one accidental step, will result in not only CalTech's administration but also law enforcement receiving data on everything I mentioned; or you can go to the university first thing in the morning, confess everything from the Arctic expedition and resign your position, moving back to New Jersey immediately afterward. You will never contact any of us ever again."

As Leonard looked at the hardness in her expression, he dredged up whatever dignity remained in a man dressed in a pig costume and hog-tied in front of his closest friends and a group of strangers. "You're fucking bluffing. I'm going to destroy all of you, starting with the tape in that camera over there."

"Ah, no can do, mi amigo," Howard chimed in, sarcasm dripping off the last word, "See, that blue cord off the back of the camera is a high-speed gigabit Ethernet cable. The video of what just happened posted to YouTube almost in real-time after bouncing around the world through a secure network, emerging somewhere in New York City. Good luck trying to find which computer among twelve million IP addresses posted it. Oh and all the corroborating information on the video indicates that this was a Jackass-style stunt."

"I'll get out of here and hack into YouTube to take it down. You're not that good," he shot back, but his braggadocio was waning by the minute.

"Here's the problem with that little bit of hubris: not only is Howard better with computers than you, that guy over there," Penny indicated one of the strangers, "is better than Howard could ever dream of being. Sorry Howard," she apologized.

"No worries, Penny. He's a wizard. I know my limits," the engineer answered with a grin.

"That information I said we have on you?" Penny went on, turning back to the supine Leonard, "It's securely stored in a special email account with very careful precautions taken. If you take any action against Sheldon, Bernadette, Howard, Raj, or anyone involved in this, it gets released. Any attempts to find and hack it trigger the sending command. And if you even think about kidnapping me for your perverted fantasies about a barefoot and pregnant housewife, here's the final kicker: I have to send a special code every twenty-four hours to the account, otherwise the information gets sent to the university and the police. It's over, Hofstadter."

He tried to snarl again. "You'll be back. You always come crawling back with your tail between your legs. At least until you can get me between them. When you fail out at acting again, I'll be right here, and you'll have to admit that you're nothing without me."

She snorted again and made to leave, ignoring his hateful vitriol, but he had one last barb left. "He'll never love you. Not the way you need it. He's an asexual freak, and you're a whore. You could never be happy with him."

So intense was her anger at the insults to herself and Sheldon that when Penny turned back, everyone present could see mayhem in her gaze. Whipping her knife out again, she started advancing on Leonard, expression growing more malevolent with each step. Howard and Raj tried to physically restrain her from following through on her castration threat, but neither were any match for her strength, especially in her rage. Two of the newcomers had to pitch in to keep Penny from violence..

Bernadette stood in front of the group and forced Penny to meet her eyes, willing her to calm down and lose the killing rage. "He's not worth it, Penny!" She said calmly, standing still in the face of almost unbridled rage. "You've already ruined his career. Don't sink to his level.

Penny shrugged off her friends with a small smile of apology. The group stood around him in a ring, looking down with righteous condemnation. "If you ever, and I mean EVER, stalk, harass, or otherwise try to insert yourself into the life of any woman without her permission again, we'll know it," she growled, "We'll be watching you, Leonard. Make the right choice. Do the right thing for once in your miserable life. We're through."

Without another word, everyone turned and walked out of the arena, deaf to his pleas for someone to cut him loose. He was alone, tied up, and dressed like a pig.

"Damn it!" he shouted, impotently struggling against the ropes.

* * *

What Penny failed to mention was that there was a caption uploaded with the video, only appearing in the final five seconds. On the screen in front of Sheldon's stunned face appeared a simple message:

**Now we're even, Moon Pie.**

With a satisfied huff, Sheldon closed his laptop and sighed deeply. Just as he got up to make some tea, there was a knock at his door. He looked at his watch and smiled. _Right on time, as always._

Opening the door, he greeted his visitor. "Hello, Amy. I'm so glad you could make it. Please do come in. We need to talk."


	11. Chapter 11

"Thank you for inviting me over, Sheldon," Amy greeted warmly as she entered the apartment.

Too warmly. His hackles started rising as he took in her hungry demeanor. _Always the same thing with her. She's as bad as Leonard the way they chase after coitus like it's the be-all and end-all of existence_. "It's my pleasure," Sheldon answered as calmly as he possibly could before introducing a momentous shift to their group dynamic. He gestured for her to join him at the kitchen island. "Would you like some tea?"

"I'm in no distress, so a hot beverage is unnecessary," Amy replied, looking at him out of the corner of her eye as she put her purse on the couch.

When confronted with an unknown quantity, Amy always defaulted to emotionless professionalism. _Easy to anticipate,_ he thought, fondly remembering a time when Penny used that phrase against him. His growing smirk unsettled her further. "You will."

"I'm sorry?" she said, even more puzzlement washing over her face.

Without looking over his shoulder as he got the mugs from a cabinet, Sheldon continued, "Might as well get this over with now, just like ripping a Band-Aid off. Best to do it all at once. You'll find a folder on the island there. Inside is a –"

He never got to finish. Amy threw the folder across the room and started devouring the document inside, sure he was codifying an upgrade to the physicality of their relationship. Her gasp of horror told him she read the title on the page. "'Dissolution of Relationship Agreement'?! What the hell, Sheldon?" She exclaimed, her voice rising with each word.

Refusing to allow his emotions to match hers, he merely nodded and pointed to the document. "As you have surmised, I've decided to end our romantic relationship. If you read the document, you'll see that it falls under Section 19, subparagraph 3: Lack of desire."

Her expression turned wounded, and he almost gave in to the guilt rising in him, but he pressed forward. "I am sorry if this causes you any distress. We've given this relationship a real shot, but I just don't feel the physical attraction to you that I suspect you want in a potential mate."

Amy's face remained locked in confused dismay. "I don't understand. I thought things were going so well. We were working toward becoming more intimate."

Shaking his head, Sheldon sighed. "No, you were working toward that. I was trying to avoid hurting your feelings when I turned your advances down. To be totally honest, your efforts have tended more to the manipulation side of late, and I find myself very uncomfortable with the way that has changed. In all fairness, though the attraction was never there on my part, Amy. I'm sorry if this hurts your feelings, but I can't live like this any longer. It would only be worse for you in the end."

"Worse for me? Sheldon! You're breaking up with me after months of this farce of a relationship? I don't believe this!" Amy threw the papers on the island and started pacing around the living area.

"What's not to believe? You've spent how long trying to change my mind about physical intimacy when I never indicated I was aroused, attracted, or interested in any way?" Sheldon maintained his calm, counting on Amy's professional detachment to kick in before she lost control.

"There has to be another reason. There just has to be something else. What is it, Sheldon? What's really behind this sudden desire to end our relationship?" Amy demanded.

"There is no reason other than my fundamental lack of attraction and desire for this relationship to continue, both of which are legitimate causes of relationship termination as I've cited in the document," he explained patiently.

His calm demeanor was getting to her even more than the action of breaking the relationship, he could see. The more he stayed even-tempered, the more agitated she grew. Her hair began swirling around her head like a coffee tornado as she turned sharper in her pacing. "No! You don't get to do this to me after all the work I've done trying to turn you into a real boyfriend."

She cut off his protest before he could get it fully started. Amy forcibly calmed herself before continuing, knowing that was the only way to get through to him. "Those don't even sound like your words, Sheldon. You've always been driven by the idea of a relationship of the mind, one where emotions and physicality have little to nothing to do with your partner. Why the sudden…" Seeing his face twitch as his eyes flicked to the front door made everything crystalize for her. Understanding dawned, and Amy's face contorted with despair and anger. "It's her, isn't it? My bestie? You're sleeping with her, which is why you won't touch me!"

"Absolutely not," Sheldon retorted, "Penny and I have never engaged in coitus at all."

Amy's eyes narrowed. "That's an awfully specific response. Answering that you've never slept with her sort of leaves it open-ended for what you _have_ done, wouldn't you say?"

His face twitched again. _Drat. I hate having such an obvious tell,_ he thought, knowing as it happened that it would open the proverbial can of worms.

"Ah-ha!" she shouted, pouncing on the nonverbal admission. "What happened between you and Penny?"

He sighed, deciding to tell her everything to hopefully clear the air. "It was a couple years ago. She slipped and fell in the shower, dislocating her shoulder. I was the only one she could call for help, so I helped her up. When I went to support her, my hand slipped and accidentally grabbed a handful of her breast. That was all that happened."

"So you've been to second base with my bestie? My _former_ bestie?" The horror on Amy's face would have been vaguely amusing had he merely been an observer of this social disaster, rather than a party to it.

"Second base implies a romantic connection. I merely saw her nude and accidentally grabbed her when I meant to support her elbow," he clarified, patience wearing thin.

"She told me once that you loaned her money when she needed it. I never knew my boyfriend was paying for sex with my whore of a best friend," she said, allowing the bitterness to take control.

That shot was too much. Sheldon drew himself to his full height and looked her squarely in the eye across the kitchen island. "You take that back, Amy Farrah Fowler!"

"I will not! You gave her money and fondled her supple flesh. What other conclusion is there to draw?" Truculence won out as Amy fell into her old routine of believing the worst at an apparent betrayal. The scars of school days run deep.

"There is no conclusion to draw. She is a friend, she needed money, and I desired her proximity, so I helped her out. I helped her again when she needed physical assistance to make it to the emergency room. Anything else was an accident," Sheldon's lifelong aversion to conflict stood him in good stead as he refused to give in to her baiting.

Angry tears were starting to form in the corner of her eyes. Sheldon was enough of a gentleman that he pushed the mug of steaming tea across the island in an effort to try to comfort her. She swiped her arm across her eyes to wipe the tears before refusing his offer. "I don't want your tea and I don't want you anymore, _Doctor_ Sheldon Cooper. I'm going to go over to my former best friend's apartment and tear her a new one for whoring herself out before I leave here forever."

"You will do no such thing," he saw his voice affect her, arresting her movements as surely as if he'd slapped her. Something in him gave him strength, and his voice was like a steel bar wrapped in velvet. Soft but firm and unyielding.

"And who's going to stop me?" she shot back, moving around the island to glare up at him, "You? Your whore? I think not."

"You have two choices, Amy. Choose wisely. You may sign this document now, acknowledging the dissolution of our relationship, and leave here quietly…"

"Or?" she interrupted. Amy was being deliberately belligerent, trying to provoke him into a verbal slip.

"Or things will go very badly for you, very soon," was all he was willing to give her at that moment. Let her hang on to her illusion of dignity.

"I don't think so, Sheldon. Vague threats aren't going to deter me. I've been betrayed by so-called friends before, but this is the last straw. I'm finally going to stand up to myself to that hooker across the hall," she declared before signing her name with an angry flourish and flouncing to the door.

"Amy? I really wouldn't do that if I were you," he said, giving her one last chance to not go off the deep end.

"You're not me, Sheldon, so I really don't give the furry hindquarters of a rat for your opinion."

"You keep calling Penny a prostitute, but have you really thought this through?" he asked with a deceptively innocent calm."

"Yes, Sheldon, I know what a whore is." Petulance. Her actions and entire demeanor were beyond tiresome and unnecessary by this point. His patience was over. It was time to cut this down to size.

Sheldon moved around the island, taking his place in a challenging pose near the sofa. "Do you really? Remind me, Amy, where your university funding ultimately comes from," the first step of leading her down the path was the easiest.

"You have an eidetic memory, Sheldon. I don't need to remind you of anything."

"Humor me," he requested.

"Fine. My funding comes from Faisal," she allowed, unwilling to indulge whatever game he was playing any further.

"And Faisal is your…" She didn't want to play, but he wasn't going to let her off the hook that easily.

"Fiancé. From Saudi Arabia. Can we just cut to the chase here? I really don't want to stay around any longer than I have to." Doubt started to replace the anger in her brown eyes.

"Ah yes, your fiancé," he drawled with all the arrogance of a practiced courtroom attorney. Putting his hands behind his back and slowly pacing, Sheldon landed the next blow. "So you're promised to marry him, theoretically, right? Dating me is technically cheating on your fiancé, yes?"

"I suppose if you want to split hairs, yes, but…" her earlier defiance was ebbing by the second.

This time it was Sheldon who interrupted. "And – forgive me if I'm wrong, but it has been pointed out that I am little better than a robot sometimes – isn't one of the fundamental tenants of a betrothal the promise of marriage?"

"Yes…?" she answered, increasingly unsettled.

"And all that marriage entails? Including coitus with the marital partner?" Sheldon pressed, shamefully enjoying the dismay in Amy's eyes grow as he led her to the only logical conclusion.

She had to stop this. Stop this now before she had to acknowledge his painful arguments. "You've got this all wrong. I never intended to…"

"Oh I'm sure you didn't, Amy, but to call Penny a prostitute when you yourself have, at least nominally, promised sex in exchange for money to fund your addiction studies is more than a little like the pot calling the kettle black. At least you got paid up front. That was a smart business decision," triumphant smirk prominent, Sheldon watched her wilt.

She turned wordlessly to leave before his voice stopped her once more.

"Oh, and should you decide to make any trouble, you should know that I looked into Faisal and his family, and there are serious questions about their connections to various shady groups and organizations around the world. If you cause any trouble for myself or Penny, I'm sure the authorities would find your ties to someone like him, as well as the prostitution side of things, very interesting indeed." He was done. The gauntlet was thrown down, but he knew she wouldn't pick it up.

After a horrified gasp, Amy turned and finally escaped without another word or challenge. Sheldon listened to her ungraceful clomping trail off down the stairs.

He heaved a huge sigh of relief, feeling the tension from the affair seeping out of him slowly. Flopping back onto his spot, Sheldon felt his pocket vibrate and reached for his phone. It was a text from Leonard, of all people.

**Consider this my proper notice. I'll be out of the apartment by the end of the week. I'll leave my half of the rent on the counter.**

Jaw dropping open, Sheldon stared at his phone in disbelief. He hadn't expected this development in the slightest. What the hell happened to convince Leonard to leave of his own free will?

**Thank you, Leonard.**

Thinking for a moment longer, he sent a quick message to Penny.

**Your efforts to get rid of Leonard were commendable. I enjoyed the video of your 'Junior Rodeo' skills. I have experienced similar upheaval today, and I'd like to talk about it with you tonight, if you're free.**

It wasn't long before he had her reply.

**I'll be there with bells on, Sheldor.**

His brain fizzled wondering where and how.


	12. Chapter 12

On the drive back from the rodeo arena, Penny could tell Sarah was periodically looking out of the corner of her eye. It almost became a game to see how long she could hold out against the other woman's silent interrogation. Giving up her attempt to remain quiet, she sighed and broached the topic. "Sheldon texted me."

"You don't say," Sarah deadpanned.

Penny huffed in amused exasperation. "That's what I get for trying to hide something from you, right?"

Sarah merely grinned as she focused on the road ahead.

"Fine, fine. Yes, Sheldon texted to thank me for taking care of Leonard. He said something about big changes over there, but didn't say what they were. He just asked if I would come over."

Her friend let the pregnant silence gestate for a brief moment before asking the obvious question in between lane shifts. "And are you going to go?"

"Well, I said I would, so I guess I have to," Penny hedged her answer, hoping it would placate Sarah's interrogation but knowing it wouldn't.

"But you don't really want to?" Sarah was persistent, forcing Penny to admit everything.

Penny dropped her head as she exhaled. "I do, but the second I leave that apartment it's for good, you know? It'll be the last time there. Most of me wants to prolong that. I want to have that one last time to look forward to, I guess."

"That's understandable. Irrelevant, but understandable," Sarah said with a cheery tone that belied her words.

"There's a lot of nonsense coming out of your mouth right now, you know that, right?" Penny snarked as her head snapped around, giving the other blonde her full and complete attention – no easy feat when most of her wanted to watch what form her impending doom took. Sarah drove like a maniacal Formula-One racer.

Sarah snorted. "You and I both know that you could walk into that apartment and walk out with Sheldon and all his action figures following happily along if you really tried."

Penny shook her head in negation. "We talked about this. Sheldon's not like that. Batting my eyes and sticking my chest out aren't going to get his attention. I don't even think he _has_ a deal." She could feel her heart and hopes sink with every word. She'd have to get over that foolish dream. He was destined to touch the stars; she was destined to walk among the dust at his feet.

"So give him one. There has to be a way for you to get him to notice you as more than the blonde across the hall. You've got almost five years of friendship built up right? That has to count for something," Sarah persisted as she honked her horn and took the shoulder around an SUV that was so large it almost looked like it could hold her entire car.

Looking down at her lap – since her hands were busy grabbing any handle they could for precious stability, Penny's voice was almost too soft for Sarah to hear. "He doesn't want me. He couldn't ever want me. I'm just the community college dropout. He's the future Nobel Prize winner."

This time Sarah actually laughed. "You're trying to tell me the girl who just rode down and hog-tied her own stalker is afraid of a skinny scientist? The Penny I just saw on that horse wouldn't be afraid of anything. The only question is what you want. Once you figure out what that is you just need to figure out how to go get it."

"But he's got a girlfriend. Sort of, I mean. No one really knows what their situation is," Penny protested, finding one giant roadblock to her pursuit of Sheldon.

"All you can do is try, right?" Sarah asked, unwilling to let her off the hook that easily.

"Do or do not, there is no try," Penny quoted automatically, remembering the line from the countless times she'd seen the Star Wars films with the boys.

"Oh, honey. You have it _bad_ ," Sarah started laughing at the mortification on Penny's face when she realized how she'd used a science fiction movie line reflexively.

Penny just buried her face in her hands. "It's got to be catching. I'm turning into a giant damned nerd after spending so much time around those guys."

"So why fight it? Trust me, accepting the inevitable assimilation instead of resisting just makes it easier," Sarah said through her chuckles.

Penny mock-gasped. "You're one of them too! I thought you were a little too familiar with the culture."

Sarah's laughs grew louder. "Join us, Penny," she commanded in a fair imitation of a robot's monotone.

When she was done shaking her head at the helpless humor in her situation, Penny grew pensive again. "Take the chance of a lifetime, just like that?" Penny asked, hating how small and afraid her own voice made her sound.

"What do you have to lose?" Such a simple question, but one with so many ramifications.

In those six words, Penny heard the shape of her own fate. She was tired of being afraid, of letting others tell her where to go and what to do, afraid of her potential. Finally fully realizing that she had gone from a vibrant, dedicated girl who wanted to spread her wings and take on the world to a timid, browbeaten near-alcoholic woman guilted into sex by a paranoid, selfish, and jealous little man, Penny gave herself a huge mental slap across the face.

"You know what? You're absolutely right. Time to throw caution to the wind and take life by the throat again," she said with a more vibrant smile than she'd worn in a very long time.

"All right! That's what I wanted to hear. Let's go get you your physicist!" Sarah cheered with a fist pump that had a trucker honking his horn.

Penny let out a lighter laugh than she had in months, feeling the freedom that came with making a momentous decision and damning the consequences. With her new-found mental clarity, she knew what she would have to do to show Sheldon she was serious. Turning to her new friend, a mischievous grin crossed her face. "There's just one thing I need to do first."

* * *

They made a quick stop by Sarah's office. Penny needed to print a couple documents very quickly, and it just happened there was a notary nearby that was able to notarize each sheet she planned to show Sheldon. She knew her lanky genius.

Penny also had a strange request, but it was one Sarah was only too happy to fulfill – when she stopped laughing.

When they were done she took a deep breath and nodded to Sarah. It was now or never.

* * *

Standing in front of the apartment door, Penny did something she'd never done before, but she knew this encounter had to get started on the right foot, so to speak.

She knocked.

For a half-second she'd been tempted to imitate Sheldon's triple knock in humor, but at the last moment she decided something that could be interpreted as mocking would be a bad way to start the most important conversation of her life.

After a few beats the door opened, revealing a visibly confused Sheldon. "Penny?"

"Hi, Sheldon. May I come in?" she asked demurely. She'd thrown him a bit off-balance. That could be good. He was insanely perceptive, so if he couldn't see what she was here for, it could really help her cause.

He stood aside to allow her entrance, and cocked his head to one side as she came in, as if there was something unusual about her that he couldn't explain. The faint sound of jingling accompanied her movements, but she had no bells tied to ribbons in her hair, none attached to her shoes, nor anywhere else that he could notice.

Sheldon observed with a primal appreciation the way her white halter-top sundress clung to her curves, stopping at mid-thigh. Not for the first time did he find himself remembering how her body looked – and felt – from the times he'd accidentally seen and touched her. As his blood surged southward, he committed the image to his memory, knowing that if she did indeed move out of the building and gradually fade from his life, he would at least have this moment to cherish.

For her part, Penny smiled as she walked into the living area she knew so well. On the trip home, she'd gone over and over in her head how to go about this talk, but in the moment, in the strange silence of the apartment and Sheldon's apparent confusion to her presence, all her plans fled her, leaving her alone to talk from the heart.

Of course Sheldon had other ideas. Opening her mouth to start talking, Sheldon was already speaking.

"The way you dealt with Leonard was masterful," he said with a small upward quirk of his lips, "With no lasting harm you were able to send your message clearly and succinctly. I got a text message from him just a few minutes after I saw the video saying that he would be moving out."

Letting out a breath she didn't know she was holding, Penny felt the relief course through her. It was over. "He must have bribed or begged one of the arena workers to cut him loose. I'm just happy I finally cut him loose myself," she chuckled, "What about Amy?" Penny felt equal amounts of anticipation and dread at learning the status of Sheldon's strange relationship with the neurobiologist.

"I have ended any attachment to Amy Farrah Fowler," Sheldon declared simply, not offering any reason.

Penny goggled, sitting down heavily on the couch next to Sheldon's spot in her surprise. "Wha – why?"

With a sigh of his own, Sheldon walked over to his desk, looking for anything to fiddle with while he decided exactly how to answer. The simplest reply would be to say that he was in love with Penny and that a relationship with Amy was unfair to all three of them, but he was well-versed enough in interpersonal communications by this point to know that being so direct was a bad idea. "I never had the physical attraction to her that she seemed to so desperately desire in the last few weeks and months of our friendship and relationship. For me it was always a relationship of the mind; I never desired any more from her."

"Then why did you allow it to continue? Why get pushed and pulled into something you didn't want?" She had to know. _Needed_ to know why he did that.

"Everyone seemed so insistent. Raj and Howard found her for me, you and Leonard said it would be a good idea; I just thought it would be easier to go along with what everyone seemed to want so much. Plus with Howard and Leonard pairing off the way they tried to, it felt like that would be the easiest way to keep the group together," he explained.

"So you just dated her to make everyone else happy? Sheldon!" Penny scolded, aghast at her own part in his discomfort.

"I didn't do anything that I didn't want to; part of me thought it was time to begin that stage of my life. My own mother pushed me into it, too," he explained, sitting down next to her.

"I'm really sorry if it ever seemed like I urged you into something like that," she apologized, tentatively putting her hand on his forearm for support. She almost pulled it away out of instinct, but when he didn't recoil, Penny took encouragement and left it there.

"It's over now. Nothing to worry about. I told her there was no future for us," Sheldon said, settling further back into the couch.

"Things are well and truly over for me and Leonard too. I think he got the message when I hog-tied him," she said, barely able to contain her giggles until she was done. The relief of Sheldon being done with Amy combined with the last traces of adrenaline leaving her system after the rodeo evening, leaving her almost giddy. It was oddly like being buzzed after a little too much wine.

"That's wonderful news, Penny. I know you'll be a lot happier now. Even better, you won't have to move out of this building!" he replied, excitement rising with every word.

Penny sighed. Knowing this was a topic that required face-to-face talking, she scooted back on the couch and looked at Sheldon directly. "No, I still have to leave," she told him.

His eyes narrowed slightly as she moved, again detecting _something_ that he couldn't explain, but he shook it off at her declaration. Disappointment flashed through his eyes. "But why? With Leonard gone, surely you'd feel safe enough to stay here. Why do you need to leave?"

Eyes shining, she forced herself to get through this explanation. He absolutely had to understand her reasoning before she could ask any more of him. "His ghost would be everywhere. Do you see this sofa?"

He nodded.

"How often did Leonard and I sit here together?" Seeing the understanding start to dawn she continued. "How often did we eat together around this table? How often did he make me coffee in the morning? How often did we make lo –" she stopped as Sheldon's raised hand cut her off.

"I understand," he said, eyes downcast. For his part, Sheldon saw it all happening before him. She would leave and start her new life, leaving them all behind. Howard had Bernadette, and with Leonard and Amy out of their circle, it would be down to himself and Raj most nights. Not that he minded Raj of course, but after getting used to such a large group of friends, having it shrink so dramatically was concerning. What made his stomach churn and his chest clench painfully, though, was the thought of losing Penny. She was his light, the one he turned to whenever he needed someone he knew he could count on.

Taking Penny out of the equation completely was untenable. Thus, there was only one satisfactory answer. He began cautiously, feeling out her emotions. "I understand. Would we be able to maintain our friendship once you move? By the way, where is it you'll be moving for this new job?" he asked tentatively.

"I'll be moving to Santa Monica, sweetie, and of course we'll stay friends! I couldn't ever stop being your friend, Sheldon. Your friendship means too much to me," she tried to reassure him.

_Now or never, Sheldon Lee Cooper. Time to put it all on the line. Time to stand up and be a man for your Queen._ "What if I were to move to Santa Monica myself? Would we be able to maintain a closer friendship like we have now?"

Penny couldn't help it – her eyes got wide and she drew a deep breath. "I couldn't ask you to do that. I know how comfortable you are with the familiar, with your routines. I could never ask you to give up everything you've spend so long arranging just to follow me."

For the first time, he smiled. "But you're not asking, I'm offering. Yes, I like my routines and this apartment, but you're right – Leonard will always be here. If I leave, I could escape that too. What it comes down to, Penny, is that I could give it all up. All my habits, my routine, this little bubble; they mean nothing to me if you're not here as well."

He just kept bringing the shockers. Penny was dimly aware that her jaw was hanging somewhere down around her waist, but she couldn't bring herself to close it. He was saying everything she wanted to hear from him. "Are – are you sure? Do you really know what you're saying?" she asked.

"Need I remind you of my IQ?" He asked with his cockiest smirk.

That made her answer with a grin of her own. "No, no, you certainly don't. Ok, ok, ok," Penny got up from the sofa and started pacing around the living area, repeating 'ok' over and over. Sheldon looked at her with concern, but she held up a hand to stop him when he moved to get up. Mentally repeating everything he said, she worked up her courage to broach the real reason she was there. A serene calm came over her when Penny understood everything behind what Sheldon was saying. She stopped her pacing. Looking over at him with her warmest smile, she moved to her messenger bag, discarded by the door when she came in. "I have something for you, Sheldon."

She removed the papers, bound with a plastic spiral and covered by a clear sheet of plastic and handed the packet over to him.

Watching his own hands take the papers from her, Sheldon was surprised to see them shaking. The words on the cover sheet made them shake even more.

"You…you wrote this?" he stammered in disbelief.

She nodded, unsure how to take his reaction. "I wanted something that would show you how serious I was."

"A relationship agreement between Sheldon Lee Cooper and Penelope Marie Collins," he breathed, "It's very thin, Penny. Are you sure you covered every possible eventuality?"

The grin that broke across her face at his question got his heart racing for a myriad of reasons. The only problem was that he couldn't figure out which was the strongest when she was looking at him that way.

"Absolutely, Sheldon. I think you'll find it's exhaustive enough even for you," she promised.

He sat down, intending to read it through as carefully as he read all contracts, but when he opened the cover, he looked up at her in surprise. "There's just one page here!"

" _Read_ it," she urged, indulgent exasperation coloring her voice.

With narrowed, somewhat suspicious eyes, Sheldon looked back at the document and read aloud, "Desiring him just the way he is, Penny Collins promises to respect, love, and cherish Sheldon Cooper. All disagreements will be resolved by respectful conversation, leaving no ambiguity. Desiring Penny Collins just the way she is, Sheldon Cooper promises to respect Penny Collins in every way, from other demands on her time to her intellect. Advances in physical intimacy will be wholly mutual." He took a moment to stare at the words on the paper. "Penny?" he asked quietly.

"Yes, sweetie?" She tried hard to contain her smile. Sheldon had the same expression as someone who woke up and realized it was actually Christmas morning.

"This…this is amazing. No one has ever gone out of their way to set up an agreement for me before. It was always me doing this kind of thing. Do you love me?" he asked, barely daring to add any hope to his voice. His heart was racing after seeing how she signed her name before they'd even had the talk. She was dedicated enough to sign and notarize a relationship agreement that she drafted, knowing how to play to his comfort zone.

The toughest question he could have asked after seeing the document she made, and he lead with it. Penny shook her head, smiling at his predictably frustrating move. She took a minute to think of the best answer she could give him. Something her grandmother told her when she was a little girl sprang into her mind and crystalized everything. "I don't know, Sheldon."

His face started to fall and she could see the hope in his shining blue eyes fade. Before he could give up, she quickly continued, "But I think I could be. You're the most important person in my life, and I have very strong feelings for you. Whether those are love or not, I'm not sure. I've always been scared of using that word to label feelings, which is one of the things Leonard couldn't accept," she took a deep breath before telling him something she'd never told another person, "When I was a little girl, my grandmother told me that love isn't some magical force that you just understand when you see someone. It's not destiny or predetermination. She said that love was when you chose to give everything you had, everything that made you who you were, to another person. It's what makes you stick through the tough times for them. You want their happiness before your own. I think that could be you and I – God knows we've been friends through some crazy crap already. I think we just need to put in the time together to see if we're really at the point of knowing that it's more."

A timid smile crept slowly back to his face, "Are you saying…?" he trailed off, reaching out to take her hand in his without finishing his question.

Her smile grew into a full-blown toothy grin at how he signified his interest – Sheldon Cooper never willingly touched anyone. Anyone, it seemed, except her. That alone was enough to tell her what she needed to know. Looking over at his whiteboards, she was heartened to see the equation he'd been working on when he fed her the line of bull crap about his sister's friend Peggy.

" _(Pe-L) + (S-A) = X. Solve for X,_ " she recited, "I have the answer to your equation. May I?" she asked permission.

He nodded wordlessly, confused at her seeming avoidance of his question. Sheldon watched her get up – just as tantalizing as her approach – and head over to his board. He distinctly heard the jingling sound again but was at a loss to explain its source. _Maybe I'll see if Dr. Stephanie would see me next week to check my hearing,_ he mused.

When Penny started looking around for supplies, he scrambled to hand her his spare eraser and dry erase markers.

Penny took the eraser with a smile and wiped away the _X. Solve for X_ he'd scrawled. With a red marker, she drew in a heart symbol. It looked oddly appropriate next to the various mathematical symbols and Greek letters.

"There. Penny, taking away Leonard, plus Sheldon, taking away Amy, equals love. X equals love. That's my theory, anyway. Should we design and conduct an experiment to prove it?" She almost laughed out loud at the sheer disbelief written across his face.

He was dumbfounded. Not only did she write up and sign a relationship agreement for them that covered everything yet wasn't as dry and legalistic as his contracts had been in the past, she suggested the two of them start dating as an experiment to test the theory? She said she wanted to see if she actually loved him in science-speak. "You're amazing," he breathed in awe.

With a happiness unlike anything she'd felt recently, she planted a soft, chase kiss on his lips. In a move that surprised them both, he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her in close, deepening both the kiss and the embrace. Her tongue was the first to break the barrier of their lips – she was the big ol' 5 after all – but he just as eagerly accepted the intrusion.

"I do have a bone to pick with you," he said after the need for oxygen forced them to break the kiss.

"What are you talking about?" She asked, not liking the negative connotations intruding on their happy bubble.

When he answered, Sheldon's voice was low and rumbling, with his Texan twang coming out in a way she'd never heard before. "Your text message distinctly said that you said you'd be here with bells on, but you're not wearing any bells."

With a saucy grin, she wet her lips. "Who says I'm not wearing any bells?"

Never one to back down from that kind of a challenge, he set his jaw, eyes twinkling. "Prove it," he growled.

Penny raised an eyebrow, loving this new side of him. _What the hell? It's not like he hasn't seen it already._ She stepped back, cocking one eyebrow up in a perfect Spock move that had his blood racing and reached behind her neck to undo the ties to the halter top. Loosened, the dress fell to the floor in a puddle at her feet.

For the first time in his life, Sheldon Cooper's brain went totally, completely, and blissfully blank because of a woman.


End file.
